President Bush has a creditability problem. Here are a couple of examples.
Gosh, reading an economic report to Congress from President Bush, one wonders if he is back on the blow. Here is how an AP article put it on 2/13/07:
Looking back on last year, Bush said the economy turned in a solid performance despite the ill effects of the residential real estate bust.
The economy grew by 3.4 percent last year, as measured by gross domestic product from the fourth quarter of 2005 to the fourth quarter of 2006.
The president’s report projects that economic growth will slow to 2.9 percent this year, reflecting lingering fallout from the housing slump. Next year growth will pick up, with the economy expanding by 3.1 percent.
Meanwhile, this week Chrysler announced the cutting of 13,000 jobs, US icon candymaker Hershey announced they would cut 1,500 jobs and move more production to a new plant in Mexico, and Coca-Cola plans to cut 3,500 jobs.
So growth in 2006 was 3.4 percent and is expected to be 2.6 percent in 2007 and then 3.1 percent in 2008? And 3 major employers are slashing payrolls.
I am not an expert but Bush’s report is NOT good news and neither is the economic forecast.
President Bush also now wants us to believe that Iran is supplying arms to Shiite militias in Iraq in a way that recalls the efforts the administration tried to “prove” the danger of Saddam Hussein as a pretext to invading that country. The mainstream media seem to have collective amnesia of that debacle and are reporting the “proof” about Iran without challenge.
The website Media Matters, as well as anyone with an IQ over 10, sees the parallel:
In reporting on the Bush administration’s allegations about Iran’s role in Iraq, media outlets have covered the matter in a muddled, incomplete manner, omitting any skeptical or critical analysis of these allegations, which suggests, in the words of washingtonpost.com’s Dan Froomkin, that “the lessons we should have learned from Iraq may not have been learned at all.”
Fool me twice? — NY Times, CBS, NBC report Bush allegations about Iran without context, skepticism
Froomkin, writing on the website “Nieman Watchdog” said:
You Can’t Be Too Skeptical of Authority
Don’t assume anything administration officials tell you is true. In fact, you are probably better off assuming anything they tell you is a lie.
Demand proof for their every assertion. Assume the proof is a lie. Demand that they prove that their proof is accurate.
Just because they say it, doesn’t mean it should be make the headlines. The absence of supporting evidence for their assertion — or a preponderance of evidence that contradicts the assertion — may be more newsworthy than the assertion itself.
Don’t print anonymous assertions. Demand that sources make themselves accountable for what they insist is true.
Froomkin also listed the “provocation alone does not justify war” and that we need to find out what others outside the US think.
Knowing that Bush is such a religious person, I would also like to offer the classic fable by Aesop about the “Boy who cried wolf” that I learned in Sunday school.
The moral is if you lie enough times, when there is real danger you will not be believed. Bush wonders why people have a hard time believing his accusations about Iran.