The Lies Of George W Bush Deals on David Corn

The Lies of George W. Bush

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Editorial Reviews

“Get ready to get mad. Corn has cut through the spin and crafted an important and powerful challenge to Bush and his crew.” —Molly Ivins

“David Corn’s The Lies of George W. Bush is as hard-hitting an attack as has been leveled against the current president.” —Los Angeles Times

“George W. Bush is a liar. He has lied large and small, directly and by omission. He has mugged the truth–not merely in honest error, but deliberately, consistently, and repeatedly.”

In this scathing indictment of the president and his inner circle, David Corn reveals the deceptions at the heart of the Bush presidency. With wit and style, Corn details how the Bush administration has consistently lied to the American public to advance its own interests, from mischaracterizing intelligence to whip up support for war with Iraq to misrepresenting the possible consequences of his supersized tax cut and offering false claims to push a radical agenda on crucial issues across the board. In this unflinching work of hard-hitting journalism, Corn explains how Bush has managed to get away with it and explores the danger of presidential deceit in a perilous age. This paperback edition also includes an up-to-date analysis of the aftermath of the war with Iraq.

Customer Reviews

a tale of romance, victory, termoil, then another victory and then a bloody, sensless death of an ice cream truck driver

Reviewed by pmd, 2010-01-25

i had to whipe my tears away i must admit, when that poor ice cream truck driver was punished for something he didnt even do, he didnt try to flirt with the guys wife, nor did he try to give her an expensive diamond ring by hiding it in the kids ice cream, the kid stole the ring from a random persons coat pocket, then swollowed it on purpose!!! the injustice is madness! what a thrilling ride this book takes you on. phewww, im glad its over though, it was intense.

The Lies of Whom?

Reviewed by Hinkle Goldfarb, 2006-09-28

I'll admit up front that Corn has some decent points. He is willing to concede the obvious: "most presidents lie, many brazenly and with impunity" (p 2). He is willing to admit that Clinton lied about the Rwanda genocide (pp 4-5) and...er, that other thing that Clinton's known for lying about. Corn also deserves props for not at least not trying to turn Bush into a total cartoon. Moreover, he digs up some Bush contradictions that even I hadn't known about, like a 1978 interview in which Bush expressed pro-choice views (pp 21-22). He also properly criticizes Bush for some of his actual lies, like his reasons for concealing his drunk-driving arrest (pp 27-30).

However, the book has some serious flaws. Foremost is lack of proper sourcing. If you're going to write a book calling a man a liar, you should at least point to definitive places in the public record. Corn doesn't do that. The book has no end notes and few footnotes. Some references are in the text, but usually not ones that permit a retracing of the author's steps to obtain the source quote. That's a real drawback and a bit of a surprise in a book that, by liberal standards, is otherwise carefully written.

As you might expect with a book that fails to provide proper source documentation, it is rife with innuendo, distortions, selective amnesia, word play, misleading quotes, blind quotes, biased sources, single sources and unverifiable claims. Prominent in these categories are: Ben Barnes' unsubstantiated accusations of preferential treatment in the National Guard** (p 24); 2000 Republican South Carolina primary dirty ticks (pp 33-37); the cost of health care (with Families USA, a hard-left group as his source for the plan's economics) (p 45); Bush determination to go to war without ever mentioning that it had been an explicit U.S. policy since 1998 and Clinton had stated on 2/17/98 "We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program" (pp 206-240); "major newspapers" citing unnamed intelligence analysts supposedly coerced into slanting intelligence, without ever naming either the newspapers or the analysts (p 281).

Also, for a man casting stones, Corn lives in a house with a lot of glass. Listed below are a few of Corn's own lies, misstatements and inaccuracies. This list isn't just for an ad hominem, but rather a demonstration that Corn cannot be trusted as an accurate or definitive source.

* "Richard Nixon...claimed he had a secret plan `to end the war and win the peace...'" (p 3). In fact, Nixon never made such a statement (Safire, NYT Magazine, 6/25/00).

* Social Security's rate of return is supposedly a "paltry-but-guaranteed-2-percent" (p 43). First, Corn himself states that in 29 years, under the current system, Social Security is projected to begin to be able to cover only 70% of its obligations (p 42). A 30% drop is quite a bit different than a "guaranteed" 2% increase, is it not? Second, Social Security is not "guaranteed" in any meaningful sense of the word. See Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U.S. 603, 610-11 (1960).

* Regarding Florida 2000, James Baker supposedly claimed that every vote "had been counted by a machine at least twice" (p 54). But that's not what Baker said. The reason I know that's not what Baker said is because Corn himself quotes Baker correctly in the preceding page, where Baker says the votes "'have not only been counted, they've been counted twice'" (p 53). See the difference? Corn puts words in Baker's mouth by claiming that Baker said that the votes had been counted twice by *machine.* Baker never said they'd been counted twice by machine and engages in a petit libel by claiming Baker does. Tip to Corn: if you're going to do a hit job on someone, make sure you don't include any accurate quotes.

* Bush's position on stem cells means "imposing a virtual ban on this research" (p 120). "Ban." Let's think about this for a second. The 18th Amendment: that was a ban. Smoking on airplanes: that's a ban. Stopping federal (as opposed to state or private) money from being used on new stem cell lines but not old ones: that's not a ban. It's a restriction.

* "Bush spent 14 months trying to make the case that Saddam Hussein was an imminent danger to the United States..." (p 204). This is a well-worn lie of the Left. Bush never said Saddam posed an "imminent danger," "imminent threat" or imminent anything. In fact, in his 2003 State of the Union Speech, Bush said just the opposite, that we should attack Saddam *before* he became an imminent threat: "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late."

* A meeting in Prague in April 2001 between Mohammed Atta and Ahmad al-Ani, an Iraqi intelligence officer "never even happened" (p 216). Oh? That's not what the CIA director told the 9/11 Commission: "'Atta may also have traveled outside of the U.S. in early April 2001 to meet an Iraqi intelligence officer, although we are still working to corroborate this'" (9/11 Report p 386). At the very least it is still subject to legitimate dispute.

* The attempt by Iraq to purchase yellowcake uranium was "seemed to have been predicated on a hoax" (pp 229, 288-294). In response, first note that Corn himself can't come out and unequivocally state it was a hoax. He has to leave himself an out ("seems to have been") but of course he would never dream of cutting Bush the same slack. Second, the fact is that Iraq almost certainly *did* seek yellowcake uranium from Niger. The Brit's Butler Report confirmed their initial intelligence, and the Senate Intelligence Committee Report of July 7, 2004 states: "[former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim] Mayaki said...that in June 1999, [redacted] businessman, approached him and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss `expanding commercial relations' between Niger and Iraq....Mayaki interpreted `expanding commercial relations' to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales" (Report p 42)

And of course the book gives us the usual anti-Bush staples, the eyes-glazing-over vignettes that fill up any and all of these types of books: TANG service (pp 24-27); Florida 2000 (pp 53-64); Enron (pp 175-190); Harken Energy (pp 190-198). Not that these vignettes are necessarily factually incorrect, but rather have already been thoroughly examined and much doubt exists about certain key claims on both sides. But to sweep them up into supposed overarching theme of Bush lies is ad hominem, black and white fallacy, argumentum ad verecundiam, slanting, argumentum ad populum and just plain silly.

** Unless you count forged documents as substantiation.

How did this happen?

Reviewed by Red Faitholl, 2006-05-25

George W. Bush once said, "First and foremost is to tell the truth. There's a lot of young people who get disillusioned when they see political figures say one thing and do another; political figures who say, I'm going to campaign one way, and campaign another way; political figures who, when they take the oath of office, dont uphold the dignity and honor of the office. So step one is to... tell the truth." This is the biggest load of hipocracy I have ever heard. This book honestly and validly points out hundreds of lies that have come out of George's mouth as Governor, president hopeful, president elect, and, worst of all, president of the United States of America. If this book was read by half of the people who voted for him in 04, he would have lost the election in a landslide. If this book was read by all of the senators and representatives in Washington, Bush would certainly be impeached.
This is the America we live in, history in the making. Dont go through life ignorant, read the facts and know the situation before you even consider taking an opinion on the job of the president. Read it now because when all is said and done, the history books will not be kind to Mr. Bush.

Are We Really This Stupid?

Reviewed by patriotman, 2006-04-20

[...]

First of all, the author needs to find out what the word "lie" actually means. When a person tells a lie, he is saying something that is not true when he knows it is not true. With the WMDS issue in Iraq, Bush actually did not lie. He was merely stating something that he believed to be true when it was found that is wasn't true. He even apologized for it!

[...]

David Corn provides a moral compass to those lost in the Bush Administration wilderness...Oprah: the time is NOW

Reviewed by Earl Hazell, 2006-01-28

"We live in a relativistic culture where television 'reality shows' are staged or stage-managed, where spin sessions and spin doctors are an accepted part of politics...where an aide to President Bush, dismissing reporters who live in the 'reality-based community,' can assert that 'we're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality'...members of the current Bush administration, as Franklin Foer has written in The New Republic, have promoted 'the radically postmodern' view that 'science,' 'objectivity' and 'truth' 'are guises for an ulterior, leftist agenda,' arguing that experts (be they experts on the environment, Medicare or postwar Iraq) 'are so incapable of dispassionate and disinterested analysis that their work doesn't even merit a hearing'...As Deborah Lipstadt, author of DENYING THE HOLOCAUST: THE GROWING ASSAULT ON TRUTH AND MEMORY has argued, the suggestion that no event or fact has a fixed meaning leads to the premise that 'any truth can be retold.' And when people assert that there is no ultimate historical reality, an environment is created in which the testimony of a witness to the Holocaust - like Mr. Wiesel, the author of NIGHT - can actually be questioned..."

Michiko Kakutani
New York Times
"Bending the Truth in a Million Little Ways"
January 17, 2006

"This [neoconservative] focus on reintegrating Iraq into the regional framework of order under US hegemony was no doubt heightened by the fact that Iraq challenged the US monopoly over the oil trade, maintained through the fact that oil transactions occur in US dollars. Since 1971...the dollar has...become the de facto world reserve currency... Overall, since the world economy is fundamentally oil-dependent, this...lends the US a dominant trading advantage...In November 2000, Iraq began trading its oil in euros, and profited handsomely in the process. Iran, Venezuela and Russia--all key oil producers--have also considered and/or moved towards switching to the euro..."

"The real reason the Bush administration wants a puppet government in Iraq--or more importantly, the reason why the corporate-military-industrial network conglomerate wants a puppet government in Iraq--is so that it will revert back to a dollar standard and stay that way..."

Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed
and
William Clark
BEHIND THE WAR ON TERROR
From Part Two, Chapter Seven: "False Pretexts"
And quote from
"The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War
with Iraq: a Macroeconomic and
Geostrategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth"
Independent Media Center, January, 2003

"[A] very selective history [as compiled here of 19th and 20th century presidents] demonstrates there are many varieties of presidential lies. Some concern grand policy matters, some concern secret government activity...Sissela Bok, the author of LYING: MORAL CHOICE IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIFE, defines [a lie] simply as "an intentionally deceptive message in the form of a STATEMENT (emphasis his)"...I would propose a slightly different standard for White House occupants. If a President issues a statement, he or she has an obligation to ensure the remark is truthful... It is not enough for a president or White House contender to BELIEVE what he is saying is true; he/she [like scientists, doctors, journalists and other professionals whose careers are built on a basic understanding of honesty, research, integrity and the public trust] should KNOW it to be true--within reasonable standards...Lying in office not only poses a potential risk for [a sitting president], a president who lies is a risk to the nation. He might steer the country into a war under false pretenses. Or, if he comes to be regarded as untruthful by a significant portion of the public, he might fail to rouse the country for military action that is indeed warranted. A liar in the White House is a national security threat."

David Corn
THE LIES OF GEORGE BUSH
From the Introduction
(Published in 2003, before
the start of the Iraq war)

With the recent excruciating interview of James Frey, author of A MILLION LITTLE PIECES on Oprah regarding the dishonesty of selling his truth-based novel as a memoir, and the conversations about the nature of truth & honesty in our society (and its relevance), there has never been, nor will there ever be in my opinion, a better time for the American public to take a courageous look at the total absence of honesty and honor in the Bush Administration: that from which the American culture's current will to equate any statement successfully serving a political agenda or lucrative business endeavor with truth flows.

Many people remember the degree to which Ms. Winfrey openly criticized President Clinton for his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky and the resultant impeachment proceedings on her program. However, her silence regarding the litany of lies coming from the Bush Administration...the appalling absence of critique regarding everything from the issues surrounding his first election (see Greg Palast, THE BEST DEMOCRACY MONEY CAN BUY) to the WMD/Downing Street Memo scandals...and now the unapologetic illegal wiretapping of American citizens.... Ms. Winfrey's comparative or total silence over the lies, the cost of them to the American economy, American culture and American lives (what is the current body count of our soldiers in Iraq?) and more do more than make the James Freys of the world comfortable with their convenient melding of myth and reality at people's expense. Her ability to create public debate and bring cultural truths to light, combined with her refusal to engage in a substantive public conversation or debate on these all-important topics make her complicit in the eroding of our Constitutional rights and the very nature of not just truth but our democracy as a whole; something billionaires don't often have to worry about but regular people, even in the suburbs, must. Her quiet regarding our President's character and the catastrophic effect it is having on the nation is a greater threat to her integrity than anything James Frey has ever conceived of being.

Like this book or not, agree with it or not, America needs it. Badly. Oprah: the time is now to fulfill your destiny, and protect the soul of your country.