We're Winning the War on Memos

Stop me if you've heard this one before, but the Bush Administrtation used a faulty report to claim a political victory. How many times have we seen this happen? It's as if the Bushies don't even expect the media to fact check any drivel they shovel out. And given the last few years, I don't have a lot of faith in the media either.

This latest outing of a big Bush lie concerns last month's State Department Report on Counterterrorism, which claimed that acts of terror around the world had declined in the past year. That report has been proven overly optimistic:

The State Department acknowledged Thursday it was wrong in reporting terrorism declined worldwide last year, a finding used to boost one of President Bush's chief foreign policy claims -- success in countering terror.

Instead, both the number of incidents and the toll in victims increased sharply, the department said. Statements by senior administration officials claiming success were based "on the facts as we had them at the time. The facts that we had were wrong," department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Why do the facts hate America? Because they only compiled incidents from a portion of 2003. In other words, if last year only has 7 months in it, then yes, there were less terror attacks last year.

You know, these constant after-the-fact admissions of guilt (like in the case of faulty accounting in the Medicare Bill, for example) are too damn late. This is the MO of this Administration: get the initial report on Page A1, and a month or so later, print the retraction on Page B14. It's disgusting, and it needs to be recognized. One of John Kerry's big lines on the campaign trail has been calling this Presidency "the most say-one-thing, do-another Presidency in history." Well, there's plenty of ammo to support that, it's time to get specific. You could have a month of "Big Lies" with a new one every day, practically. That's the way to fight liars: with their own lies.