Why Won't the Press Call Bush a Liar?

Posted by Jill C., Brilliant at Breakfast at 8:34 AM on June 6, 2008.

Why is the press still reluctant to tell the truth about George W. Bush's run up to war -- that is a bald-faced liar who deliberately lied to the very Americans he's supposed to serve because he wanted to get into a war that he thought would give him a Great Legacy™ and fatten the pockets of himself and his cronies in the bargain?

Now that the report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has come out, this is no longer the exclusive province of bloggers and "kooks." It is absolute truth, that this president betrayed the trust of the American people in a way no other president has done in my lifetime -- not even Nixon. And yet, as he plays out the string of his ghastly, destructive, miserable presidency, the press still won't call him a liar.

Today's headlines:

• The New York Times: "Bush Overstated Evidence on Iraq, Senators Report"
  
• San Francisco Chronicle: "White House scolded on prewar claims"
  
• Detroit Free Press: "Officials' Iraq claims unsupported, report says"
  
• Washington Post: "Bush Inflated Threat From Iraq's Banned Weapons, Report Says"
  
• Bloomberg: "Bush Oversimplified Iraq Intelligence, Report Says"
  
• Reuters: "Bush misused Iraq intelligence - US Senate report"
  

"Inflated." "Misused." "Overstated." "Exaggerated." Even the report refuses to use "The L Word":

“Representing to the American people that the two had an operational partnership and posed a single, indistinguishable threat was fundamentally misleading and led the nation to war on false premises,”

Richard Clarke weighed in on Countdown last night:

Let's not surgarcoat it: This president is a liar. A shameless bold-face liar. And that is to our eternal shame.

Tagged as: bush, media, iraq, lies, propoganda