Keep Truth Alive

Officials at the Bush Presidential Library consider whether or not to retrieve the Mission Accomplished banner from storage and put it on display, while Bush goes on Oprah and hawks his new book in a "jokey interview."  Yes, I am still harping on Bush's attempt at rehabbing his sullied reputation (see, e.g., Bush Rehab, Pitfalls of Only Looking Forward).  But I'm not only doing this because I enjoy it.  I believe that Bush's attempts to mitigate his gross malfeasance with falsehoods and misrepresentations must be challenged and that he not be allowed to escape responsibility and rewrite history.  As Dan Froomkin says, if the case Bush keeps making for himself "goes largely unrebutted by the traditional media, as it has thus far -- then perhaps he can blunt history's verdict."  So, please read Froomkim's article, "The Two Most Essential, Abhorrent, Intolerable Lies of George W. Bush's Memoir, which takes Bush down on his two more egregious lies -- that he had legitimate reasons to invade Iraq and legitimate reasons to torture.  And, please read David Corn's articles, including Omission Points, Bush Photoshops Rove Out of Plame Scandal, and Still Not Telling the Truth About Iraq and WMDs. And please read the invaluable Robert Parry, George W. Bush:  Dupe or Deceiver?.  And please read George Packer's blistering review in The New Yorker, which concludes thus:

Bush ends “Decision Points” with the sanguine thought that history’s verdict on his Presidency will come only after his death. During his years in office, two wars turned into needless disasters, and the freedom agenda created such deep cynicism around the world that the word itself was spoiled. In America, the gap between the rich few and the vast majority widened dramatically, contributing to a historic financial crisis and an ongoing recession; the poisoning of the atmosphere continued unabated; and the Constitution had less and less say over the exercise of executive power. Whatever the judgments of historians, these will remain foregone conclusions.