I’m disappointed in GW Bush (…still…)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before...

Having initially brought “honor and integrity” back to the White House by losing the popular vote to Al Gore in 2000, Bush has spent the last 7 years making Bill Clinton’s Presidential prevarications seem like charming white lies, like telling your Mom she looks good in her floor-length leopard-print mumu. Even Bill Clinton’s new fibs, like purporting to have always opposed the Iraq War (see “I’m disappointed in Bill Clinton,” a couple posts down) pale in comparison to the whoppers that the current CIC pukes forth on a daily basis.

He (Bush) even calls press conferences especially to tell his lies. A couple days ago, he had a Q&A with the press in which he claimed to have just learned that Iran had suspended its WMD program in 2003, in spite of the fact that there’s a paper trail a mile wide that he was informed of same at least as long ago as this August.

So, here’s the timeline: Bush is informed in August that Iran is deemed to pose no nuclear threat to the U.S. Two months later, he goes on TV beating the drums of war against Iran, warning us of an impending “World War III” should we not take quick, decisive action against the alleged Persian miscreants.

He leaves his poor press flack twisting in the wind to issue tortured (I mean, enhancedly-interrogated) statements like this one, as reported by CNN: Nor did Bush mislead Americans in October, when he warned of a third world war triggered by Iran's development of nuclear technology, [White House spokesman Dana Perino] said. “The president didn't say we're going to cause World War III,” Perino said. “He was saying he wanted to avoid World War III.”

I guess it depends on what your definition of “President” is...

Obviously, something happened in the last few weeks to make Bush dial back the run-up to the war with Iran that all his chicken-hawk advisors had been pushing, and we’ll probably have to wait till his post-presidency to find out what it was. Perhaps Ms Perino will write a companion piece to former flack’s Scott McClellan’s forthcoming tell-all tome.

Methinks it was pressure from the GOP presidential field, who have enough problems without the prospect of inheriting another no-win desert war from their current Standard-Bearer-in-Chief. I wonder who they sent to the White House to read him the riot act. I’m picturing a “Christmas Carol” scenario, with Richard Nixon as the Ghost of Presidential Scandals Past…