Bush needs to be called on whoppers

Houston Chronicle - Means - President Bush couldn't shoot straight if the life of Barney, his scottie dog, depended on it. Bush is the kind of politician who would chop down an ancient redwood and mount the stump to declare that he's for conservation. His policies constantly contradict his rhetoric.

It's remarkable how often his policies just happen to benefit his big corporate and individual contributors and his words just happen to distract voters from the fact that those policies are not in the public interest. His attacks on Kerry for pandering to special-interest groups are ridiculous, given the unequal size of their campaign contributions. A big pot is calling the smaller kettle black.

The discrepancies between what Bush says and what he actually does go on and on.

His penchant for making questionable, politically oriented claims affects policies across the board. The amount of stem cell lines he said were available for research under his restrictive policy turn out to be greatly exaggerated.

And we haven't even gotten to the invasion of Iraq yet, arguably the worst strategic mistake of any president since Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. The weapons of mass destruction that Bush dubbed "a threat of unique urgency" have never been found. We attacked a country that was not involved in the 9/11 attacks and posed no direct danger, and we're still losing American lives there.

The fuss over Bush's unexplained absences and favorable treatment in the National Guard during the Vietnam War raises additional questions about his credibility.

el - Wonder what the President's Dad thought while reading his paper this morning?