Maureen Down writes in A Dazzling Display to Mislead:

"...the administration has been so dazzling in misleading the public with audacious, mendacious malarkey that the Democrats fear the Bushies are capable of any level of deceit.

Iraq is a vision of hell, and the Republicans act as if it's a model kitchen. The president and vice president brag about liberating Iraqis and reassure us that they are stopping terrorist violence at its source and inspiring democracy in the region by bringing it to blood-drenched Iraq.

But what they haven't mentioned is that they have known since July that their rosy scenarios are as bogus as their WMD. That's when the president received a national intelligence estimate that spelled out "a dark assessment of prospects for Iraq" in the next 18 months, as Douglas Jehl wrote in yesterday's New York Times. Worst-case estimates include civil war or anarchy.


Unlike the president, the young men and women trying to stay alive in the unraveling chaos of Iraq can't count on their daddies to get them out of the line of fire."

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I think she has summed up the Republican Zeitgeist in a single fell phrase: Go forth,and be audacious and mendacious.

The Great American Moral Code: Brass in all things and Lies when convenient. Sure saves a lot of thinking, doesn't it, George?


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