They call it a press conference, but we all know it is a lie conference, where Bush exhibits his contempt for the American people by flat out telling them lies. He must really think we are a bunch of stupid people.
First off Think Progress brings us this very interesting fact:
During the reign of the Do-Nothing 109th Congress, Bush submitted two major supplemental spending requests. Each request experienced a delay far more than 57 days with hardly a peep of anger from the Commander-In-Chief. Details below:
February 14, 2005: Bush submits $82 billion supplemental bill
May 11, 2005: Bush signs the supplemental
Total time elapsed: 86 daysFebruary 16, 2006: Bush submits $72 billion supplemental bill
June 15, 2006: Bush signs the supplemental
Total time elapsed: 119 days
Or as the title of their post says “Memo To Bush: 57 Days < 119 Days”.
Next AmericaBLOG debunks the myth that “all the U.S. commanders support this surge”
Bush just spoke to the nation, trying to convince the public to support his Iraq quagmire, and he claimed again that the surge, the escalation, was the idea of his commanders in the field, and he’s just following their advice.
In fact, all of the Joint Chiefs, the heads of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, ALL opposed the surge.The Bush administration is split over the idea of a surge in troops to Iraq, with White House officials aggressively promoting the concept over the unanimous disagreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intense debate.
This was a hot button subject back in January, just before he announced the “surge”. There was all kinds of talk about how the commanders opposed it. Hell – he even replaced some of those commanders to find his “yes men”.
Josh has had enough (as well as the rest of us) and says it is time for the Democrats to call Bush on these continued lies:
The Democrats need a more frontal response to the lies the president is now telling about Iraq funding. The president, of course, wants to force this into a discussion about funding for soldiers — readiness, health care, armaments, etc. That’s funny given the president’s atrocious record on these issues. But whatever. He’s a liar. What’s new? But here’s the key. The public overwhelmingly supports a timeline for leaving Iraq. Overwhelmingly. Every poll shows this. For the first time the Congress has passed a law to do just that — to put a time limit on our presence in Iraq. So the Democrats are on the side of a timeline for withdrawal (very popular) and the president is for staying in Iraq forever (not popular).
Here is what people need to ask. What is this $100 billion for? Is it for the surge? If it is then does it cost $100 billion for every 20,000 troops we have in Iraq? If that is the case then we are looking at a price tag of $700 billion a year, or a minimum of $2.8 trillion this war has cost us over 4 years. That is not right.
The fact is that Bush purposely left the funding for the troops out of his budget last year. Why did he do this? To once again lie to the American people and say he submitted a “fiscally responsible budget that will lead to it being balanced”. Hell – why not just eliminate all federal salaries in the budget, then you can say the debt will be gone in a couple of years?
This is an important fact surrounding this debate. Bush failed to request the funds for the troops and the Republicans failed to say “hey we need to fund the troops” while they were in control of Congress. Now they want to bark at the Democrats for not jumping on it quicker than they ever did. This is the most disgusting evidence of playing politics with the lives of our soldiers, and the guilty party is the GOP. This will be the message to carry through into the 2008 election cycle. It is our ammo to prove the GOP does not care about what they say, they just care about votes. They sit there and lie while our soldiers die.