The Strategically Ambiguous Bush

"President Bush's recent claim that weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq highlights two disturbing trends in rhetoric from the White House," observes Bryan Keefer. The first "is the Bush administration's record of factual misstatements and distortions. The second is the administration's - and especially President Bush's - history of strategically ambiguous statements that, while technically or arguably true, imply connections between two things which he cannot directly demonstrate." Keefer explains how Bush has used language to fudge the difference between "weapons" and "weapons programs," to insinuate a relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, and to mislead the public about the causes of the U.S. budget deficit and the economic recession.