Boston Globe
by Thomas Oliphant

11/15/05

Just for the record, the polling numbers President Bush claims not to read show the following with regard to the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003: According to The Wall Street Journal-NBC News survey last week, 57 percent of the sample believe Bush deliberately misled the country on the way to war, more than 20 points above the numbers asserting he was straight with the country. In denying the charge, however, it is fascinating that the White House spin machine has avoided giving examples of its nuanced rhetoric on the subject of the alleged threat posed by Iraq at the time in order to make its case to a skeptical public. That's because there aren't any. Instead, there has been an entertaining chorus of claims that the charge is false but that everybody else did it -- other countries' intelligence services, assorted politicians in this country (especially Democrats). Lacking a defense, Bush's operatives have sought to construct a Potemkin universe of intelligence dupes...

http://tinyurl.com/dpjfh


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp