From Common Dreams
By Christopher Brauchli

The one thing we’ve learned but Mr. Bush has not, is that depending on whom you do it to, lying can be a crime even if you are not under oath. Mr. Bush knows that if his in-house liars, of whom he has an abundance from whom to select, lie under oath they may be subject to criminal prosecution. He thinks if they are not under oath when they lie to Congress it’s not a crime. There’s a reason for his confusion. He told the biggest lie of all and has not been prosecuted for it. What he doesn’t realize is that’s not because he was not under oath. It’s because he didn’t tell it to a Congressional committee. He told it to the entire world and that’s not a crime even though to date it’s gotten 3400 American soldiers killed, more than 25,000 American soldiers wounded and depending on what reports you choose to read, between 200,000 and 600,000 Iraqis killed. Mr. Bush’s lie is the lie that continues to give, as more soldiers and Iraqis die and are grievously wounded daily. All Mr. Bush has to do to educate himself on the two methods of criminally lying is to examine two guilty pleas entered by two former members of his administration.The most notable was Scooter Libby, Mr. Cheney’s former chief of staff. His lie couldn’t hold a candle to George Bush’s lies but it was under oath. He was convicted of lying to a Grand Jury and obstructing justice. Compared with the war-starting lies of the Cheney-Bush team, it barely registers on the scale that measures such things.

Steven Griles was formerly the Deputy Secretary of the Interior. He lied but not under oath. He pled guilty to obstructing justice and lying before a senate committee in connection with the Jack Abramoff scandal. Mr. Griles learned, as may others in the administration, that lying is a sin even when not told under oath if told to the right people.

At the same time these stories were playing out, another story making the rounds involved another highly placed liar in the Bush administration, Alberto Gonzales. It involved the firing of 8 United States attorneys. The firing may or may not have been for political purposes and for our purposes that is immaterial. What is astonishing is watching Mr. Gonzales’s memory at work. In what some might describe as early onset of Alzheimer’s, Mr. Gonzales’s memory is constantly and publicly refreshed by facts.

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