Talking out of both sides of their collective mouth

Four years ago today, George Bush wore a flight suit and said “Mission Accomplished” with a big smile on his face. Today, four years later, that mission, far from having been accomplished, continues, and we're still paying for it — with lives as well as money.

And George “Flight Suit” Bush is finding himself in a pissing match with congress about the latter's tying the military spending bill to some semblance of a definition of when we will truly consider our mission to be over, if not accomplished, something the former promises to veto. Yesterday afternoon I heard Flight-Suit Boy say that he just knows that there are Democrats in congress who want to give our troops the funding they need, rather than withholding it from them like those other Democrats, the nasty ones, are doing.

But wait, the Democrats (and the Republicans) have passed legislation that gives our troops their funding. It's King George who is threatening to withhold it with a veto. He can blame the Democrats in congress all he wants, but the fact is that it's he who will veto the funding, not congress.

George, George, you can't have it both ways. You don't get to veto what congress gets done and then blame them for not getting it done. You can't always get your way.

Oh, but he keeps trying, he and his minions. Yesterday morning, for another example, I heard General Petraeus on NPR. Now, first I have to remind all of you that there's not been any sort of civil war in Iraq. What we've had there all along is “sectarian violence”, Sunni against Shi'a, that's what it all is. OK, but now we are making progress, what with our new strategy and all, our “surge”. And so, imagine that, General Petraeus tells us that there is less sectarian violence now! He tells NPR that sectarian violence “has come down by about 2/3 since December of last year.” But, asks NPR, what about all the car bombings and such? Ah, says the general, that's not sectarian violence, no. The biggest car bombing in recent days, in fact, was in a “relatively mixed” area. Sectarian violence is down.

Overall violence, though, regardless of what we call it, isn't. You don't get to call it sectarian violence until it's more convenient for you to call it something else, and then claim success because you've given it a different name.

And still they try to have it both ways.

And still the media let them have it both ways, rather than calling them on it. Point out to your readers and listeners what's deceptive and misleading, when someone says it! Don't let this stuff go unchallenged.