Back to W--as Andrew Sullivan said in a recent column, either the man is just totally out of touch, or he's a liar pure and simple, but here are a series of W's claims on the Russert show, with the truthful facts that challenge nearly all of them (and the facts are backed up by a range of sources).
Center for American Progress: The President on Meet the Press Just a few of the whoppers:
QUOTE
DAVID KAY'S REPORT
CLAIM: \"And when David Kay goes in and says we haven't found stockpiles yet, and there's theories as to where the weapons went. They could have been destroyed during the war. Saddam and his henchmen could have destroyed them as we entered into Iraq. They could be hidden. They could have been transported to another country, and we'll find out.\"
FACT – KAY ACTUALLY SAID WMD HAD BEEN DESTROYED AFTER 1991: David Kay didn't say we haven't found the stockpiles of chemical weapons because they are destroyed, hidden or transported to another country. Kay said that they were never produced and hadn't been produced since 1991. As he said, \"Multiple sources with varied access and reliability have told ISG that Iraq did not have a large, ongoing, centrally controlled CW program after 1991. Information found to date suggests that Iraq's large-scale capability to develop, produce and fill new CW munitions was reduced - if not entirely destroyed - during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox, 13 years of U.N. sanctions and U.N. inspections.\" [Kay Testimony, 2004]
CLAIM: \"The reason why we gave it time is because we didn't want it to be hurried... it's important that this investigation take its time.\"
FACT – OTHER COMMISSIONS SHOW THAT THE REPORT IS BEING DELAYED FOR POLITICS: Regardless of upcoming Parliamentary elections, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has set up a similar commission to investigate intelligence that will report by July. Additionally, in 1983 after the terrorist attack on U.S. troops in Beirut, a commission was appointed and completed its report within 2 months.
CLAIM: \"We have given extraordinary cooperation with Chairmen Kean and Hamilton.\"
FACT – WHITE HOUSE HAS STONEWALLED THE 9/11 COMMISSION: According to the Baltimore Sun, President Bush \"opposed the outside inquiry\" into September 11th. When Congress forced him to relent, Time Magazine reported he tried to choke its funding, noting, \"the White House brushed off a request quietly made by 9-11 Commission Chairman Tom Kean\" for adequate funding. Then, the NY Times reported, \"President Bush declined to commit the White House to turning over highly classified intelligence reports to the independent federal commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, despite public threats of a subpoena from the bipartisan panel.\" And as the Akron Beacon Journal reported last week, \"the 9/11 panel did not receive the speedy cooperation it expected. In a preliminary report last summer, the panel's co-chairmen, Thomas Kean, a Republican and former governor of New Jersey, and Lee Hamilton, a Democrat and former congressman from Indiana, complained about lengthy delays in gaining access to critical documents, federal employees and administration officials. They warned the lack of cooperation would prove damaging, ensuring that a full investigation would take that much longer to complete, if at all.\" [Source: Baltimore Sun, 6/14/02; Time Magazine, 3/26/03; NY Times, 10/27/03; Akron Beacon Journal 2/2/04]
CLAIM: \"How about the fact that we are now increasing jobs or the fact that unemployment is now down to 5.6 percent? There was a winter recession and unemployment went up, and now it's heading in the right direction.\"
FACT – THE JOB MARKET CONTINUES TO STAGNATE: Since President Bush's first tax cut in March 2001, the economy has shed more than 2 million jobs. He will be the first president since Herbert Hoover to end his term with a net job loss record. Additionally, the White House Counsel of Economic Advisors pledged that the President's \"jobs and growth\" package would create 1,836,000 new jobs by the end of 2003 as part of its pledge to create 5.5 million new jobs by 2004. But the economy added 221,000 jobs since the last tax cut went into effect, meaning the White House has fallen 1,615,000 jobs short of their mark. [Source: EPI, 2/4/2003; Jobwatch.org]
JOB CREATION
CLAIM: \"There is good momentum when it comes to the creation of new jobs.\"
FACT – STATISTICS SHOW THERE IS NOT GOOD JOB MOMENTUM: In the last two months we've seen an average of 73,000 private sector jobs created. At this pace, we wouldn't see a new net job created until May 2007. Even beyond the recession and 9/11, just looking at the recovery since November 2001, the current pace of job growth puts us on track to have the worst jobs recovery since the Great Depression.
CLAIM: \"But what the people must understand is that instead of wondering what to do, I acted, and I acted by cutting the taxes on individuals and small businesses, primarily. And that, itself, has led to this recovery.\"
FACT – BUSH TAX CUTS HAD LITTLE EFFECT ON SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS The Bush tax cuts had little effect on small business owners. Under the first tax cut, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports, small business owners \"would be far more likely to receive no tax reduction whatsoever from the Administration's tax package than to benefit\" because only 3.7% of small business owners are affected by the top tax rate cuts that were the bulk of the plan. Under the 2003 tax cut, the Urban Institute-Brookings Tax Policy Center estimates \"nearly four out of every five tax filers (79%) with small business income would receive less than the amount\" while \"52% of people with small business returns would get $500 or less.\" [Source: CBPP, 5/3/01; CBPP, 1/21/03]
Fair enough, bud; there'll be more debating down the line! :cool: