The release last week of an intensively researched report on the Bush administration’s campaign of deception leading up the Iraq War made a good-sized stir in the blogosphere, if not in corporate media circles. Although the study generally refers to the 935 documented de facto lies as “misleading statements” or “false statements,” the subtitle of the report more than hints at its condemnatory nature.

Entitled “The War Card: Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War,” the report was a collaborative effort by the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism. I’ve skimmed through the report on the CPI web site, and I must say that it’s quite impressive in its scope and thoroughness. I encourage everyone to read through the report and its supporting materials. Particularly useful is the 380,000-plus-word online database, which allows us to search through speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, etc. by Bush administration officials, including the Liar in Chief and the Vice Liar in Chief, and the other major players we’re all acquainted (and surely disgusted) with.

The database search tool is quite sophisticated, for example allowing us to search by keywords, the various players in The Lying Game (my own characterization here, not the authors’), various subject areas (including a global “False Statements” category), and custom date ranges. Pretty damn nifty! (I did a search on “uranium + yellowcake + Niger” using the False Statements selector, which was very instructive.)

Nine hundred and thirty five lies sounds like a pretty impressive number—and it is—but consider that the report focuses solely on false statements by George W. Bush, the Vice Liar, and six of the administration’s top officials (National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan), on at least 532 separate occasions, and during the two years following September 11, 2001.

I know that the continual avalanche of lies coming from this White House over the past seven years has certainly had a numbing effect on many citizens. Speaking for myself, when I started this blog I was mad as hell and determined to expose and denounce as many of the lies as possible—until I realized that the task is simply too gargantuan for any regular working person like me (and a few willing assistants) to keep up with. And it never stops! Sometime last year, Bush Fatigue set in, and I had to back away from the torrent of mendacity and take frequent sabbaticals from it all.

So, yes… It’s been a mind-and-spirit-numbing seven years, and if we were able to do a completely exhaustive study of all the lies foisted upon We The People by this criminal administration, and tally them all up, it would surely be an overwhelming total. Clearly, we as a nation have never had to endure such a mountain of dishonesty as we have suffered under the Bush II regime.

At any rate, looking at just this two-year period, and just these eight criminals, and just this one lying campaign (deceiving the nation into an illegal, unjust war for Iraqi Oil and American Empire), how do these players stack up in terms of their lying prowess? Let’s see…

#1, the Champion Liar: George W. Bush: 260 lies or false statements
(We don’t call him the Liar in Chief for nothing!)

#2: Secretary of State Colin Powell: 254 lies or false statements
(He certainly carried the football.)

#3 (tie): Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld: 109 lies or false statements

#3 (tie): Press Secretary Ari Fleischer: 109 lies or false statements

#4: Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz: 85 lies or false statements

#5: National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice: 56 lies or false statements
(C’mon, Condi! You could ’a done better than that!)

#6: Vice President Dick Cheney: 48 lies or false statements
(Guess he was too busy “working in the shadows.”)

#7: Press Secretary Scott McClellan: 14 lies or false statements

Particularly instructive in the report is a chart (below) that documents the escalation of lies as the buildup to the invasion of Iraq mounted, and the tapering off of the lying campaign (they were just busy lying about other things) once the invasion began and following “Mission Accomplished.”

Clearly, this was orchestrated deception, as the data shows, and I think that if we search our own memory banks, we will recall the pattern of escalating mendacity that we observed as little King George’s deadline for invasion approached.

I don’t fault the researchers’ choice of language in using descriptors like “false statements” and “misleading statements” instead of “lies” (the more plain-spoken alternative that we can be freer to use here in the blogosphere). After all, this is a professionally researched academic work, and so it was important to preserve a tone of professionalism, rather than injecting a more opinionated characterization.

However, I found a video on the CPI site which is, I think, very instructive in showing the careful dance that politicians will do, when dancing around questions of truth, “misleading statements,” and outright lies. Here, Bill Buzenberg, Executive Director of the Center for Public Integrity, interviews former Representative Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired the 9/11 Commission, and elicits his reaction to the War Card report. More instructively, the CPI’s Buzenberg has to persistently tease out Hamilton’s opinions regarding the extent and degree of deception and outright lying that took place, and it’s interesting to observe Hamilton’s reactions:

(Direct link to video here)

Yes, it’s a careful dance they do in Washington. Dance around the truth, hem and haw, and “fiddle while Rome burns.” But as far as I’m concerned, and especially when it comes to this administration, a lie by any other name is still a LIE. In the end, it all comes down to motive, and when we consider the motives ($21 trillion in proven Iraqi oil reserves, for one), “orchestrated deception” is an apt description.

I think most citizens, if we’re paying attention, can clearly see the naked corruption of this Emperor and his court. And I hope that we are mad as hell, and won’t take it any more!