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Bush End Game
George W. Bush's presidency since 2007

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George W. Bush's presidency from 2005-06

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George W. Bush's presidency, 2000-04

Who Is Bob Gates?
The secret world of Defense Secretary Gates

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Bush Bests Kerry

Behind Colin Powell's Legend
Gauging Powell's reputation.

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Recounting the controversial campaign.

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Is the national media a danger to democracy?

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Behind President Clinton's impeachment.

Nazi Echo
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Rev. Sun Myung Moon and American politics.

Contra Crack
Contra drug stories uncovered

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America's tainted historical record

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The 1980 election scandal exposed.

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Editorials

Editor’s Note: It almost seems like a quaint notion to believe that the United States could be led by someone who is not a habitual liar. However, in 1976, Jimmy Carter built his successful run for the White House on a simple pledge of never lying to the American people.

In this heartfelt guest essay, radio commentator Jay Diamond praises Carter’s idealism and cites what he considers George W. Bush’s most destructive lie:

Jimmy Carter has written a post on the Washington Post's "On Faith" blog entitled "Presidents Should Not be Liars."

Carter states: “I do not think the President of the United States should be a liar, and believe that the overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens agree with me. For security reasons, the whole truth cannot always be revealed, but it is quite obvious that lies are seldom made to protect our nation. Almost invariably, the political fortunes of the prevaricator are at stake.”

While Carter doesn’t mention any recent names or examples, some obviously come to mind. The most glaring, destructive and disgusting lie invented and maintained by the handlers of George W. Bush is their manifestly false insistence that the attack on and occupation of Iraq is of material importance to the security of the United States.

As in every other instance with this administration, the prime consideration ... or the ONLY consideration with respect to policy has been the calculation of the political potential in any situation.

Why this is not written or spoken about more in the press and on radio and television is an enduring mystery and a monumental failure of "commentators."

Mark me well, Bush et al did Iraq for no other reason than to bring about an historic 2004 landslide for Dubya.

They DID think it would be easy and that it would be over in three weeks, and they DID think that all the American soldiers would be home by Christmas 2003.

None other than Sean Hannity indicated this to me in a phone conversation in February 2003.  In answer to my skepticism about the impending attack, he said that he was regularly in touch with people "at the top" (likely Rove, since Hannity's program is a reliable transcript of Rove "information") and that they assured him that it was a done deal, that the main fighting would be all over before three weeks, and that the troops would be back by Christmas that year.

This is a fact, though Hannity will likely deny it. It is, however, the blunt truth.

But even if this corroboration had not taken place, it is clear to me that Bush's political wing, which had sway over everything he did, also was pre-eminent in the planning of the attack and occupation of Iraq.

The point was to bulldoze low-information voters into seeing Bush as having avenged 9/11, and thereby to bring about an historic landslide in 2004 which would have given Bush the "political capital" to truly advance his domestic agenda of rolling back the New Deal.

Bear in mind, his first initiative after "re-election" was to vainly attempt to “privatize,” i.e., END, Social Security.

Well, if he had actually had the "political capital" he bragged about after barely squeaking by on election day 2004 by less than two percent (the lowest re-election percentage by any president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916), he probably would have succeeded in castrating Social Security, and would have gone into Republican history (as opposed to actual history) as the man who redressed the "evil socialist" New Deal, and thereby restored "freedom" to America.

Bottom line: Bush knew Iraq had zero to do with the security of the United States. And Bush also knew that a quick kill in Iraq would trick huge numbers of uninformed voters into thinking he had saved them and saved the USA.

EVERY single U.S. soldier AND every single Iraqi civilian who has been killed since March 20, 2003, died because they were sacrificed to Karl Rove's "re-election" strategy for Bush in 2004.

Nothing else.

So God Bless Jimmy Carter. 

And for that matter, I leave Bush to heaven and the merciful providence he purports to believe in.

Jay Diamond is a progressive activist and radio commentator, based in New York.

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