Lügen and mensonges and mentiras, Oh my!

Here's a quick look at the news for the end of the week:

• Bush administration officials knew about the New Orleans levee failures earlier than they said they did. According to the NY Times article, they said they had been "caught by surprise when they were told on Tuesday, Aug. 30, that a levee had broken," but "Congressional investigators have now learned that an eyewitness account of the flooding from a federal emergency official reached the Homeland Security Department's headquarters starting at 9:27 p.m. the day before, and the White House itself at midnight."
• Lewis Libby, Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, testified that "he was authorized by his 'superiors' to disclose classified information to reporters". Let's see, chief of staff to the vice president, who might his "superiors" be? Aren't they the same ones who've been saying they had nothing to do with these "leaks"?
• Bush has said, of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, that "he does not recall the two of them meeting," yet Abramoff says that "he had met with President Bush many times and was invited to the president's Texas ranch for a gathering of campaign contributors in 2003." Abramoff adds that Bush "saw me in almost a dozen settings and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids."

In the Reagan administration there was a political cartoon that could be pulled out and updated for now. The cartooon showed three presidents. First, there was Washington saying, "I cannot tell a lie."  Next was Nixon saying, "I cannot tell the truth."  Finally, Reagan saying, "I cannot tell the difference."

It's just unclear, in the update, into which of the last two slots to put Bush. How many more of these lies will we tolerate?

(I took the attached photo on the street in Leipzig in July 2003. It says, "The lies began on September 11th, 2001.")