Letting Bush off easy:

In the New York Times, there is an article Bush May Have Exaggerated, but Did He Lie?, by David E. Rosenbaum where we read:

...a review of the president's public statements found little that could lead to a conclusion that the president actually lied ...

and

There is no evidence the president did not believe what he was saying ...

But then he goes on to say:

... a strong argument can be made that he exaggerated the danger posed by banned Iraqi eapons ...

... the threat of banned weapons, genuine or not, does not seem to have been, as the president was suggesting, the decisive motivation for going to war.

On the question of taxes, Mr. Bush made a claim in his State of the Union address that was not true, and he repeated it often afterward.

What is more important is that the tax relief most people will receive is quite meager, hardly the impression the president sought to leave when he campaigned around the country for the plan.

Mr. Bush kept emphasizing the tax benefits for people with modest incomes ...     But the indisputable fact is that the bulk of the tax cut will go to the wealthy.

The question on Iraq and taxes is whether Mr. Bush stepped across the line dividing acceptable politicking from manipulation.

NOTE: Rosenbaum fails to mention that Bush claimed a connection between Saddam and al Qaeda, which wasn't even an exaggeration. It was a lie.

posted by Quiddity at 6/22/2003 08:48:00 AM