LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE (UPDATED)

The Prez finally started fighting back over the left's "Bush lied" mantra. I'm sure I'm not alone when I say "It's about frickin' time!" I was at the end of my rope on that subject. I recently saw a car with a bumper sticker that read "When Clinton lied, no one died." It was all I could do not to slash that sumbitch's tires.

This whole meme is predicated on an extreme level of stupidity. First off, what, exactly, is a lie? From Dictionary.com:

1.A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood .
2.Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression.

(emphasis mine)

Note the emphasis on intent. Just saying something that turns out to be untrue isn't lying. Is the weatherman a liar when he gets the forecast wrong? How about the talking head sports guy on ESPN who incorrectly predicts that team A will beat team B; is he a liar? Of course not. Deception and innacuracy are not the same. Anyone over four years old understands this.

The only way one can be certain that President Bush lied is to know what he was briefed in the run-up to the war. To listen to Cindy Sheehan and others of her ilk, you'd think that they all had received intelligence briefings from the CIA. The President receives such briefings daily. It's safe to assume that the editorial staff of the NY Times does not. They might get bits and pieces, but not the whole picture. They can make educated guesses, but in the end it's just pure speculation. Selling speculation as "news" is irresponsible journalism, at best. Treason, at worst.

The best indicator of whether "Bush lied" about Iraq's WMD program is the response of the one man who has been the recipient of a Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) in the recent past: Bill Clinton. Many in the blogosphere have been quoting him of late. They remind us of what he was saying in the late 90s about Iraq's WMD program. I'm not as interested in what he said in 1998 as I am in what he has been saying since the invasion of Iraq. So what has he said? Very little. And he hasn't called President Bush a liar. The one man who is in a position to effectively make that argument, and he hasn't even tried.

So why hasn't Clinton jumped on the Bush-bash bandwagon? And why did Senator Hillary vote in favor of the war? Neither one of them was in a position to be "duped." They had insider knowledge. And both of them have been quick to criticize the President on practically everything else. So why haven't they joined the pile-on? Because they know that the accusation isn't true. And Bill and Hill know that the truth can be like a time bomb. Neither one of them wants to chance that bomb going off when Hillary is gearing up for a Presidential run in '08. So they let others do the dirty work while Team Clinton steers clear. You'd think that other Dems would take note, but they're too insane with BDS, too drunk on Kool-Aid, to figure it out.

There's another point to keep in mind regarding the Clinton response. Bill Clinton is fully cognizant of the fact that his administration bears at least as much blame--if not more--for the "intelligence failures" that occurred in the run-up to the war. After all, Bill Tenet was his boy at CIA before he was W's. And intel databases are built over years, not weeks. Shortfalls in Iraq intel predated the Bush administration by a good chunk of time. The former Prez is way to smart to open up that can of worms. They don't call him Slick Willie for nothing.

So there it is. The answer is as plain, and as obvious, as the nose on Bozo the Clown's face. There are probably some folks on the left who can't see it, but I think most of them just don't want to.

Update: Well, he's at it again. Via Drudge

Clinton says Iraq invasion was a big mistake
The United States made a "big mistake" when it invaded Iraq, former President Bill Clinton said Wednesday, citing the lack of planning for what would happen after dictator Saddam Hussein was overthrown.

"Saddam is gone. It's a good thing, but I don't agree with what was done, " Clinton told students at the American University of Dubai.

"It was a big mistake. The American government made several errors ... one of which is how easy it would be to get rid of Saddam and how hard it would be to unite the country."

Clinton did however say that the United States had done some good things in Iraq: the removal of Saddam, the ratification of a new constitution, and the holding of parliamentary elections.

I took the liberty of pasting the whole article here. Note the lack of reference to lies, intel, and WMD. What does that say about a team whose captain won't use, or even publicly endorse their preferred tactic?