A simple lie
Mr. President, if I may take you back to May 1st when you stood on the USS Lincoln under a huge banner that said, "Mission Accomplished." At that time you declared major combat operations were over, but since that time there have been over 1,000 wounded, many of them amputees who are recovering at Walter Reed, 217 killed in action since that date. Will you acknowledge now that you were premature in making those remarks?
THE PRESIDENT: Nora, I think you ought to look at my speech. I said, Iraq is a dangerous place and we've still got hard work to do, there's still more to be done. And we had just come off a very successful military operation. I was there to thank the troops.
The "Mission Accomplished" sign, of course, was put up by the members of the USS Abraham Lincoln, saying that their mission was accomplished. I know it was attributed some how to some ingenious advance man from my staff -- they weren't that ingenious, by the way. But my statement was a clear statement, basically recognizing that this phase of the war for Iraq was over and there was a lot of dangerous work.
Kos has a bunch of quotes proving this is a lie, but I just wanted to say how this is a typical alcoholic's lie. Instead of accepting responsibility, he shifts blame to the crew of the Lincoln, who have previously shown no evidence of using mylar banners to celebrate other events.
Especially, given the dangers of the flight deck, that large banners pose a real risk to the flight deck crew. If they were going to use a banner, they would not do so on a live flight deck, where strong winds could rip it off and cause it to be sucked into an exhaust, foul a helicopter rotor or drag a crewman off the deck and into the briny deep. Of course, since this is a specialized kind of printing, one not commonly needed on a carrier, and one the president uses frequently, well, it's obvious that the story is a lie.
But why lie? Because he's a dry drunk and he lies about anything when pressed. His life is a series of lies. He cannot accept responsibility for anything. Any problem is someone else's fault. Never his. So instead of accepting that he did something which didn't work, he'll blame the innocent and expect them to remain silent. Which I seriously doubt will happen in this case. Lies are lies and with Bush, they keep mounting up.
posted by Steve @ 8:41:00 PM
