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Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Bad Reviews for Bush

Posted by on June 29 at 8:03 AM

Nothing but bad reviews from the major papers this morning regarding Bush’s speech to the nation last night. And in those bad reviews, plenty of code words for “liar.”

The Washington Post says Bush “didn’t speak candidly enough” and once again “missed an opportunity to fully level with Americans.” The New York Times sighs at Bush’s use of Sept. 11: “We had hoped he would resist the temptation to raise the bloody flag of 9/11 over and over again to justify a war in a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorist attacks.”

But the LA Times, in a news analysis piece, takes the hardest swing:

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Tuesday retooled his original argument for the Iraq war, justifying the U.S. military presence there as the solution to a problem that critics say the war itself caused.

More than two years ago, Bush argued that Saddam Hussein’s control over Iraq could make the nation a haven for terrorists. But in his nationally televised speech, Bush asserted that the tumult that has followed Saddam’s removal created the same threat.

There is, in these pieces, the same unmistakable sense that one gets from reading the recent polling data: people are fed up with the propaganda.