Point of Order

Stella - one of my favorite liberal readers, recently made a charge in the comments that I asked her to backup. It's something a lot of people say reflexively. I'm not saying Stella did, maybe, maybe not. But I know a lot of people are simply repeating without thought. They hear it repeated over and over and it's just popping out of their mouths as a matter of course.

What was it?

"Bush has lied on numerous occasions"

And I'm getting a little tired of it.

Prove it.

I haven't found anyone who has.

You can argue with his process.

You can argue with his conclusions.

But you can't prove he lied.

You can argue he should have known better.

You can argue he was wrong (but you better have a really good arguement for that one, because he wasn't).

But you can't prove he lied. Because he didn't. He took what he had and he did what he thought was best.

Now we get to the title of the post - "Point of order". I want to clarify something here. If you are going to say something like "Bush lied", be ready to be called on it. As I've said, I'm tired of it.

Merriam-Webster defines the word "to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive".

Which statement did Bush make that was knowlingly untrue with an intent to deceive? Bonus points if you take off your tinfoil hat when answering.

You see, as I said to Stella in my reply

"My point here is that while these are questions that deserve debate, when the anti-war side states that Bush lied, they completely turn off people like me. It's overblown. He didn't lie. No one can prove otherwise. It's a "throw it against the wall and see what sticks" arguement and it's completely counter productive to moving forward as a country. George Bush is a man who, while you disagree with many of his conclusions (and I disagree with some myself) took what he had and did what he thought was best.

He didn't lie.

He didn't do what he did to benefit some secret cabal.

He didn't do what he did to benefit the Saudi's over our country's interests.

People on the left and the media have crucified him as a liar without justification. I think it's intentional. I think if people who disagreed with "W" had said "I think he looked at this evidence and drew the wrong conclusion" they wouldn't have the support they wanted. So instead they screamed "Liar" and said it long enough and loud enough that in this shallow, "American Idol" age, they turned public opinion.Well yelling something long enough and loud enough doesn't make it true. "W" may only have a 25% approval rating, but that simply means that 25% of Americans can't be swept along in a tide of public opinion and I am proud to be in that group.

Lastly, the presence of WMD and their imminent use may have been the reason most Americans agreed that our going into Iraq was a good idea (of those who did agree), but it was never the only reason and it was never the primary reason. Most "I don't read past the headlines, if I even make that much of an effort" Americans never bothered to understand and frankly their approval was always in the wind and their opinions never mattered to me.

I am only sorry that "W"'s inability to properly articulate the full rationale is harming John McCain now."