Lies and the lying president who tells them

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Now, I know what a lot of apologists for the Bush people are saying — we all had the same information and it was bad information. Bad intelligence, they call it.

The only bad intelligence present was in the minds of the simpletons who believed this nonsense.

It turns out President Dubya and Vice President Dick and the rest of their merry band knew it was nonsense.

A couple of recent reports point it out, clearly.

The Washington Post reported last week that the administration knew that those trailers they flogged as proof of a clandestine weapons program were bogus and they still went out in public, for more than a year, saying that the trailers were proof that Saddam Hussein was a bad guy and we needed to take him out.

It was an interesting story.

And before that, the National Journal had a story that said the administration knew the aluminum tubes they flaunted as proof that Saddam was preparing to nuke us could not be used to develop nuclear weapons, but kept scaring the bejesus out of the country with the specter of a mushroom cloud rising from an Iraqi bomb planted in an American city. The story, quoting numerous sources, said Karl Rove, the evil political genius behind Dubya, warned intelligence officials to keep that secret until after the 2004 election because if it got out, it would kill the president’s re-election.

That’s pretty interesting, and it kind of calls the election into question because how were voters expected to make an informed decision without being, well, informed.

OK, how about this one? When it became known that someone in the administration had leaked the name of a CIA operative, an act that could be considered treason, Dubya claimed to know nothing about it and claimed that he had not authorized any leaks, pledging to get to the bottom of it and fire anyone involved.

Funny story. Turns out, at least according to the grand jury testimony of Vice President Dick’s former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, that Dubya himself authorized leaks. (What kind of grown-up goes around being called “Scooter�?)

Is Dubya going to fire himself?

Now, of course, he could have an excuse. It’s possible that when he choked on that pretzel a few years back and bumped his head, he had some undetected brain damage. It’s possible that he really believes stuff that simply isn’t true and that those plastic eggs all over the White House were delivered by a big bunny rabbit.

Or it’s possible that he’s lying.

I’m going with lying.

Moving on, Dubya has screwed up just about everything he’s touched. The only thing he’s been successful at is making rich people richer, and any moron can do that.

The list is nearly endless. The domestic spying program, a clear violation of the law and the Constitution. Abu Ghraib. The Medicare prescription drug plan, otherwise known as welfare for pharmaceutical and health insurance companies. His ill-fated scheme to hand over our Social Security money to Wall Street sharks. His administration’s ridiculously incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina.

The president and his buddies have compiled an astonishing record of lying and incompetence — a record that will be hard to beat.

OK, now, let’s go back a few years.

If you’ll recall, we had a president named Clinton — his first name was Bubba, I believe.

Anyway, that president got caught improperly polling a member of the electorate — a White House intern — and the ensuing storm was astonishing. The House of Representatives — that’s the branch of government populated by crazy people, accused felons and women who try to beat up police officers — impeached him for lying about the aforementioned improper polling. The Senate then came along, and playing its role as adult supervision for the House — it’s specified in the Constitution, somewhere in the back, in the fine print, next to the thing about prohibitions against rebroadcasting Major League Baseball games without express written consent — told everybody to forget about it and life went on.

I bring that up because we had a president who lied about sex and he was impeached.

And now, we have a president who lies about, well, everything and he gets a free ride.

Right now, at this point in our nation’s history, the solution is clear. Our way out of this mess is easy to see.

Where’s Monica Lewinsky when you need her?

Mike Argento, whose column appears Mondays and Thursdays in Living and Sundays in Viewpoints, can be reached at 771-2046 or at mike@ydr.com.