{"id":8482,"date":"2006-09-15T16:17:12","date_gmt":"2006-09-15T20:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8482.html"},"modified":"2006-09-15T16:17:12","modified_gmt":"2006-09-15T20:17:12","slug":"fun-with-fact-checking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/fun-with-fact-checking\/","title":{"rendered":"Fun with fact-checking"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following up on an earlier item<\/a>, I watched the president’s press conference<\/a> this morning and jotted down a quick note every time I heard him say something that I knew to be false. Needless to say, I went through more than a couple of sheets of paper.<\/p>\n

* On the issue of military tribunals, Bush said, “We will work with members of both parties to get legislation that works out of the Congress.”<\/p>\n

That’s not quite right. First, the White House isn’t interested in working with congressional Dems at all, and second, the proposals with bi-partisan support are staunchly opposed by the president.<\/p>\n

* In describing his concerns about Common Article III of the Geneva Convention, Bush said, “Common Article III says that there will be no outrages upon human dignity. It’s very vague. What does that mean, ‘outrages upon human dignity’? That’s a statement that is wide open to interpretation.”<\/p>\n

Somehow, American presidents seemed to function just fine with the same interpretation for the last 60 years. Besides, the judge advocate general of the Army recently said<\/a>, “[W]e’ve been training to that standard and living to that standard since the beginning of our Army, and we continue to do so.” To hear Bush tell it, the standard doesn’t even exist. Apparently, only he and his sycophants agree.<\/p>\n

* Asked how he measures progress in Iraq with all the death and destruction, the president said, “Well, one way you do it is you measure progress based upon the resilience of the Iraqi people.”<\/p>\n

This was my personal favorite of the day. Apparently, we’re no longer looking at progress in the war by indicators that we can actually measure<\/i> (casualties, oil production, terrorist attacks, etc.), but instead by the amorphous concept of “resilience.” Now all we need is a resilience-o-meter and we’ll have some valuable data to consider.
\n
\n* In a question about bin Laden being a modern-day Hitler, a reporter asked why the president hasn’t sent special forces troops into Pakistan in order to capture or kill him. Bush responded, “Pakistan is a sovereign nation. In order for us to send thousands of troops into a sovereign nation, we’ve got to be invited by the government of Pakistan.”<\/p>\n

Here’s a crazy idea — since Bush and Musharraf are friends, why doesn’t the president ask him about it?<\/p>\n

* On the same point, Bush added, “[T]here is a kind of an urban myth here in Washington about how this administration hasn’t stayed focused on Osama bin Laden. Forget it. It’s convenient throw-away lines when people say that.”<\/p>\n

Actually, it’s not<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* As for actually bringing bin Laden to justice, Bush said, “[T]he best way to find somebody who is hiding is to enhance your intelligence and to spend the resources necessary to do that.”<\/p>\n

And to demonstrate his willingness to enhance our bin Laden intelligence, the president disbanded<\/a> the CIA unit devoted to catching bin Laden. Good call.<\/p>\n

* Bush was asked about House Majority Leader John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) comment this week that he believes Dems are “more interested in protecting the terrorists than protecting the American people.” A reporter asked Bush if Boehner’s remarks were appropriate, and the president said, “I wouldn’t have exactly put it that way, but I do believe there’s a difference of attitude [between Republicans and Democrats].”<\/p>\n

Classy move, Mr. President. Way to help “change the tone.”<\/p>\n

Bush added, “I’m confident the Leader, you know, meant nothing personal.” He was simply accusing half the country of treason — but if we took that “personally,” we just misunderstood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following up on an earlier item, I watched the president’s press conference this morning and jotted down a quick note every time I heard him say something that I knew to be false. Needless to say, I went through more than a couple of sheets of paper. * On the issue of military tribunals, Bush […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8482\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}