President Bush Lied to Us

In the past, when someone put this statement on the table, I responded, "Prove it." The story was that President Bush convinced Congress to authorize military action in Iraq based on intelligence reports that the Bush Administration had edited in such a way as to indicate that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. I agreed that the intelligence reports were inaccurate and misleading, but nobody ever showed me concrete evidence that Pres. Bush or Vice Pres. Cheney had been personally involved in the alteration of the reports.

As of today, I have still not seen the evidence, but I am convinced that President Bush has lied to us. In fact, I see the President as being both shrewd and crafty, and capable of lying to the nation to promote his own agenda to the detriment of national security.

The proof is on his desk, in the form of an omnibus spending measure that he is about to sign.

Last year, President Bush signed an act that authorized the building of a fence along our southern border, along with other measures to prevent aliens from entering the country illegally. He announced the action with great fanfare, assuring us that he wanted to ensure the security of our sovereign state.

But the 3,500 pages omnibus spending act that he is about to sign contains a few paragraphs, written by one of his Texas political hacks, that not only reduce the funding for the fence, but cripple the building process with a nightmare of departmental, state and local approval requirements. The Democratic authors of the welcomed these neatly hidden restrictions, and the rest of Congress had only a few hours to read the bill, let alone find the wording and propose changes.

President Bush lied to us about the building of the border fence, and has ignored his oath to ensure the security of our country. And I now believe that he lied to promote his agenda in Iraq. Because of his diversion into Iraq, Afghanistan is still a dope-ridden mess, Bin Laden remains uncaptured, and both the Taliban and Al-qaida are rebuilding their strength. Now his second big lie leaves us open to thousands of illegal aliens entering our country and draining our resources for the benefit of his wealthy supporters.

Some folks say Bush is the dumbest president in the history of our nation, but he is not. He is shrewd, crafty, and also beholden to the Texas oil and agribusiness interests, and he makes no apology for it. If not the dumbest, he is nearly the worst president we have had, vying for the bottom slot with Presidents Harding and Buchanan with his deceit and the damage he has done. I only hope his successor has the wisdom and the strength to rebuild our national security and our confidence in the Presidency.