When Bush says the Democrats are playing politics on Iraq, it's because that's exactly what he's doing. There's a pattern here. Whenever Bush makes an outlandish accusation like that, he's really talking about his own actions.
The juxtaposition of two top stories in the NY Times helps prove that point. First, Bush and Cheney have the audacity to accuse the Democrats of playing politics with the Iraq war:
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney aggressively challenged the motives of Congressional Democrats today as the House and Senate prepared to consider a war spending bill that would order troops to be withdrawn from Iraq beginning later this year.Rational, sane people do not play politics with war. But we're talking about Bush and Cheney. Political opportunism has been the driving force for Bush and the GOP in their Iraq strategy. Because Bush and Cheney know they've used the Iraq war for political reasons, they think that's what everyone is doing. Not true, but that is their reality.
In separate appearances that served as a prelude to an inevitable veto showdown, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney accused Democrats of political opportunism in forging ahead with a $124 billion measure that sets a timetable for leaving Iraq.
It's a given now that the Bush administration lied and played politics from the start of the Iraq war -- about everything. At the time of Pat Tillman's death and Jessica Lynch's rescue, almost no one would have accused the White House of being so crass and craven that they'd politicize those events. But, that's exactly what they did today as we saw at the hearing on Capitol Hill:
House Democrats burrowed into the histories of Pfc. Jessica D. Lynch and Cpl. Pat Tillman in a hearing today, holding up the episodes as egregious examples of officials’ twisting the truth for public relations in wartime.This is just plain wrong. Just as it is wrong to impute political motives to those who want to end the quagmire. Nothing was sacred for the Bush team. They viewed everything through their own political prism.
They received help in making their case from witnesses who have mostly shied away from the spotlight, Ms. Lynch and Corporal Tillman’s mother, Mary, and brother, Kevin, who enlisted in the Army along with him after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
“I am still confused as to why they chose to lie and tried to make me a legend when the real heroics of my fellow soldiers that day were, in fact, legendary,” said Ms. Lynch, dressed in a brown pantsuit and speaking softly but firmly into the microphone as more than 12 photographers clicked away in front of her.
Accounts from officials of Ms. Lynch’s bravery held the nation in thrall in the early stages of the Iraq invasion in 2003 after her maintenance convoy went astray near Nasiriya and she was taken prisoner. After her rescue, which was made into a television movie, she disputed those who said she fought off Iraqi soldiers until she was captured. She never fired a shot, she reiterated today.
The “story of the little girl Rambo from the hills who went down fighting” was untrue, she said.
Bush can only think the Democrats are being overtly political because that's been his modus operandi. It's almost too obvious, which is why most of the traditional media reporters will never get it. Instead, they dutifully regurgitate Bush's lies and spin without providing any context. Bush can -- and does say anything. But, just because he says it doesn't make it true.
