I’m puzzled by the debate we're having over whether President Bush made deceptive statements before the war. In the words of Lewis Black, when did that go up for grabs?
We covered this issue (and many others) in extensive detail in All the President’s Spin. The evidence is quite clear. And we also covered many other points of contention that are cropping back up (such as, for instance, whether Bush said Iraq was an "imminent threat").
Yet Josh Marshall is gathering prewar quotes from his readers as if no one’s gone through them before. Brad DeLong is reprinting a deceptive "imminent threat" quotation from Scott McClellan that we debunked at Spinsanity in 2004. We're again having a pointless semantic debate over the meaning of the word "lie." And Glenn Reynolds and other conservative pundits are claiming that there’s no evidence Bush was deceptive.
This is a tired re-run of a debate that we've already engaged at great length. So here's an offer for working journalists or high-profile bloggers of any political stripe -- if you would like to read ATPS, send me your address and I will send you a copy. And if you're not a journalist and haven't read it yet, please pick up a copy on Amazon today. It’s still the definitive guide to Bush administration spin!
For what it's worth, Brendan, I picked up the book at Barnes & Noble a couple weeks back. I've got a couple books in front of it, but it's on my short list.
Posted by: Jon Henke | November 21, 2005 at 04:12 PM