Bush Blatantly LIED Today - We Have Evidence - Blast the Media

Stephanie

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Tue Oct-28-03 05:08 PM
Original message

Bush Blatantly LIED Today - We Have Evidence - Blast the Media

Edited on Tue Oct-28-03 05:33 PM by Stephanie

Continuing from DoctorMyEyes' thread, here is the evidence in concise form so we can demand a retraction of this insulting lie.

I hope Cat Atomic is still here to post the AMAZING graphic evidence that Bush lied about the origin of the "Mission Accomplished" banner.

Bush's denial today that the WH placed the banner on the carrier:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/10/20031028-2.html

Q Mr. President, if I may take you back to May 1st when you stood on the USS Lincoln under a huge banner that said, "Mission Accomplished." At that time you declared major combat operations were over, but since that time there have been over 1,000 wounded, many of them amputees who are recovering at Walter Reed, 217 killed in action since that date. Will you acknowledge now that you were premature in making those remarks?

THE PRESIDENT: Nora, I think you ought to look at my speech. I said, Iraq is a dangerous place and we've still got hard work to do, there's still more to be done. And we had just come off a very successful military operation. I was there to thank the troops.

The "Mission Accomplished" sign, of course, was put up by the members of the USS Abraham Lincoln, saying that their mission was accomplished. I know it was attributed some how to some ingenious advance man from my staff -- they weren't that ingenious, by the way. But my statement was a clear statement, basically recognizing that this phase of the war for Iraq was over and there was a lot of dangerous work. And it's proved to be right, it is dangerous in Iraq. It's dangerous in Iraq because there are people who can't stand the thought of a free and peaceful Iraq. It is dangerous in Iraq because there are some who believe that we're soft, that the will of the United States can be shaken by suiciders -- and suiciders who are willing to drive up to a Red Cross center, a center of international help and aid and comfort, and just kill.

The Banner, hung (and designed? and produced?) by the USS Lincoln crew, according to Bush. Looks suspiciously similar to backdrops we see at every Bush speech:

Bush's speech on the carrier:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/05/01/bush.transcript/index.html

Bush makes historic speech aboard warship
Thursday, May 1, 2003 Posted: 9:48 PM EDT (0148 GMT)

ABOARD THE USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN (CNN) -- The following is an unedited transcript of President Bush's historic speech from the flight deck of the USS Lincoln, during which he declared an end to major combat in Iraq:

Thank you. Thank you all very much.

Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.

And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.

Video of the speech linked here:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/05/01/sprj.irq.bush.speech/index.html

Bush handlers stage manage every aspect of his appearances, including this one:

Keepers of Bush image lift stagecraft to new heights
By Elisabeth Bumiller
New York Times
Friday, May 16, 2003 Posted: 7:08 AM EDT (1108 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/05/16/nyt.bumiller/

The president's image makers, Mr. Bartlett said, work within a budget for White House travel and events allotted by Congress, which for fiscal 2003 was $3.7 million. He said he did not know the specific cost of staging Mr. Bush's Sept. 11 anniversary speech, or what the White House was charged for the lights. A spokeswoman at the headquarters of Musco Lighting in Oskaloosa, Iowa, said the company did not disclose the prices it charged clients.

<snip>

The most elaborate � and criticized � White House event so far was Mr. Bush's speech aboard the Abraham Lincoln announcing the end of major combat in Iraq. White House officials say that a variety of people, including the president, came up with the idea, and that Mr. Sforza embedded himself on the carrier to make preparations days before Mr. Bush's landing in a flight suit and his early evening speech.

Media strategists noted afterward that Mr. Sforza and his aides had choreographed every aspect of the event, even down to the members of the Lincoln crew arrayed in coordinated shirt colors over Mr. Bush's right shoulder and the "Mission Accomplished" banner placed to perfectly capture the president and the celebratory two words in a single shot. The speech was specifically timed for what image makers call "magic hour light," which cast a golden glow on Mr. Bush.

"If you looked at the TV picture, you saw there was flattering light on his left cheek and slight shadowing on his right," Mr. King said. "It looked great."

The trip was attacked by Democrats as an expensive political stunt, but White House officials said that Democrats needed a better issue for taking on the president. A New York Times/CBS News nationwide poll conducted May 9-12 found that the White House may have been right: 59 percent of those polled said it was appropriate, and not an effort to make political gain, for Mr. Bush to dress in a flight suit and announce the end of combat operations on the aircraft carrier.

Bush handlers admit that the event was SO stage-managed that the ship had to slow down so San Diego would not be visible to the cameras

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22502-2003May6?language=printer

b]Explanation for Bush's Carrier Landing Altered
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 7, 2003; Page A20

President Bush chose to make a jet landing on an aircraft carrier last week even after he was told he could easily reach the ship by helicopter, the White House said yesterday, changing the explanation it gave for Bush's "Top Gun" style event.

Bush's televised landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln, for which the president wore a flight suit and a helmet and took underwater survival training in the White House swimming pool, was the dramatic start to a visit to the carrier that included an air show and a televised speech to the nation. In his address, the president declared victory in Iraq in front of cheering sailors and a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished."

White House officials had said, both before and after Bush's landing in a Navy S-3B Viking jet, that he took the plane solely to avoid inconveniencing the sailors, who were returning home after a deployment of nearly 10 months. The officials said that Bush decided not to wait until the ship was in helicopter range to avoid delaying the troops' homecoming.

But instead of the carrier being hundreds of miles offshore, as aides had said it would be, the Lincoln was only about 30 miles from the coast when Bush made his "tail-hook" landing, in which the jet was stopped by cables on deck. Navy officers slowed and turned the ship when land became visible.

<snip>

Citing Fleischer's revised explanation, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) wrote to the General Accounting Office to ask for a "full accounting" of the cost of the trip.

After Fleischer's remarks, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) delivered an impassioned speech on the Senate floor, saying he was "deeply troubled" by Bush's actions, which he called "flamboyant showmanship." The octogenarian lawmaker criticized the White House for using the carrier "as an advertising backdrop" and the military "as stage props" for Bush's speech.

A very similar backdrop:

Mission Accomplished:

*EDIT* I'm adding Cat Atomic's brilliant graphic evidence to this first post. Cat Atomic posted this in the other thread:

They used the SAME flag graphic:

This...

Makes this: