White House On Bush's Iran Lie: It Depends On What The Meaning Of "Was" Is
December 6, 2007 -- 5:29 PM EST // //

Okay, it looks like the major papers are gonna have a second chance to get it right on Bush's Iran intel dissemble.

As noted below, neither The New York Times nor The Washington Post had stand-alone stories today on the fact that White House flack Dana Perino's comments yesterday left little doubt that the President lied about when he knew about the new intel suggesting the Iran nuke threat might be bogus. On Tuesday Bush suggested that he'd first learned about it "last week." But Perino yesterday admitted that Bush was in fact told last August that Iran's nuke program "may be suspended."

Well, today Perino answered more questions about this, making the White House's dissembling even more clear:

The key exchange with Perino concerning his answer was this:

Q: Dana, but listen to what he said: "He didn't tell me what the information was; he did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze." Was the President told that there was a possibility that Iran's nuclear program could be suspended? That's what you said he was told.

MS. PERINO: Yes, the President was told that there is new information in the context of raw intelligence, not told the details of what it was.

Perino confirms here that the President was in fact told that the new intel might be saying that the nuke program was suspended. But she says Bush nonetheless wasn't lying. How is this possible, you ask. Well, the White House's absurd spin now is actually that Bush's phrase "he didn't tell me what the information was" actually meant, "he didn't tell me what the specifics of the information were."

In other words, it depends on what the meaning of the word "was" is.

If the kind of verbal hocus-pocus Bush used here had come from a Dem President, the pundits would spend days and days having a grand old time mocking him. Oh, wait -- that already happened!

Now go back and look at the original exchange with Bush from the press conference:

Q: When it came to Iran, you said in October, on October 17th, you warned about the prospect of World War III, when months before you made that statement, this intelligence about them suspending their weapons program back in '03 had already come to light to this administration. So can't you be accused of hyping this threat?...

THE PRESIDENT: David, I don't want to contradict an august reporter such as yourself, but I was made aware of the NIE last week. In August, I think it was Mike McConnell came in and said, we have some new information. He didn't tell me what the information was; he did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze.

Very plainly, the President was asked here if he had been made aware of intel that generally suggested that the nuke program had been suspended. Bush replied that what he was about to say would "contradict" this. Then he added that his aide "didn't tell me what the information was." The clear meaning was that he hadn't been made aware of the general thrust of the intel. And this was false.

Look, the man lied. And given that he lied about hyping the threat from a second country he's itching to go to war with, I'd say that deserves some stand alone stories tomorrow.

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