(Bush) Twisting the Truth

[papau]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45792-2004Sep23.html

(Bush) Twisting the Truth

By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Friday, September 24, 2004; Page A25


<snip>At the top of my personal hit parade of Bush Distortions is a statement the president has made over and over, notably during his speech at the Republican National Convention. "If you say the heart and soul of America is found in Hollywood," Bush said to loud cheers, "I'm afraid you are not the candidate of conservative values."

Bush has repeated variations of that sentiment so often that I bet you didn't know that Kerry never said that the heart and soul of America is found in Hollywood.

What Kerry actually said, after a fundraiser in which a group of stars performed on his behalf (and, yes, during which some of them said distasteful things about Bush), was this: "Every performer tonight, in their own way, either verbally or through their music, through their lyrics, have conveyed to you the heart and soul of our country."<snip>


"Incredibly," Bush said of his opponent, "he now believes our national security would be stronger with Saddam Hussein in power, not in prison." Then Bush quoted Kerry. "Today he said, and I quote, 'We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure.' He's saying he prefers the stability of a dictatorship to the hope and security of democracy."

Now, to have a Democratic nominee preferring dictatorship to democracy would be big news indeed. But here is a full rendition of the passage from Kerry's speech that Bush partially quoted: "Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell. But that was not, that was not in and of itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction that we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure."

Read the full Kerry quote again. Does that sound like someone who "prefers the stability of a dictatorship to the hope and security of democracy"? After all, in that same speech Kerry said he "would have tightened the noose and continued to pressure and isolate Saddam Hussein."<snip>

[Parche]

1. bush and the truth

Bush distorting the truth?
No cant be, he no lie

[Maeve]

2. Reminds me of an old insult

"He's so twisted that if he swallowed a knitting needle, he'd cough up a corkscrew."

[CarolynEC]

3. I think a good "meme" to get out there is that Bush is NOT deliberately...

... twisting JK's words, but that he just doesn't really COMPREHEND what JK is saying.

[spooky3]

4. A couple of the best lines are...

"I guess the incumbent benefits from the soft bigotry of low expectations." (great turn of phrase)

"A very intelligent political reporter I know said the other night that Republicans simply run better campaigns than Democrats. If I were given a free pass to stretch the truth to the breaking point, I could run a pretty good campaign, too." (a more important insight will not be found)

EJ Dionne is a rare pleasure to read in the Post.

[daydreamer]

5. TRIUMPH OF THE STULTOCRACY

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=127&e=1&u=/ucru/20040923/cm_ucru/triumphofthestultocracy