Drumbeats 0
As I pointed out earlier, the recently released National Intelligence Estimate puts the lie to statements of the Current Federal Administration.
(Actually, I reckon putting the lie to a Bushie statement is pretty much–hmmmm–the default selection. Just look at the record.)
Josh Marshall deconstructs the spin on the NIE:
Dan Froomkin deconstructs the spin over the last five months:
Bush yesterday said he was only briefed about the new estimate last week.
But a close examination of his word choice over the past year suggests that he learned something around August that got him to stop making claims that were apparently no longer supported by American intelligence.
Instead of directly condemning Iranian leaders for pursuing nuclear weapons, he started more vaguely accusing them of seeking the knowledge necessary to make such a weapon.
Even as he did that, however, he and the vice president accelerated their rhetorical efforts to persuade the public that the nuclear threat posed by Iran was grave and urgent. Bush went so far in late August and October as to warn of the potential for a nuclear holocaust.
Indeed, a careful parsing of Bush’s words indicates that, while not saying anything that could later prove to be demonstrably false, Bush left his listeners with what he likely knew was a fundamentally false impression. And he did so in the pursuit of a more muscular and possibly even military approach to a Middle Eastern country.
It’s an oddly familiar pattern of deception.
