Lies Our President - Aided By The Mainstream Media - Tells Us

As Digby points out so I don't have to, information that the late President Gerald R. Ford disagreed both with President Bush's attack on Iraq as well as how the Iraq war has been "managed" since it began was largely kept quiet. Yes, Bob Woodward and a few others may have written about it, but it certainly wasn't stressed anywhere near to the degree such "treasonous" remarks by Clinton and Carter have been.

What I find most notable, however, is the careful massaging both Bush (from whom such is expected) and the mainstream media (who I suppose we should expect this from yet I still do not) have given this issue since the announcement of Ford's death this week.

For example, I've seen numerous news clips in which Ford waxes proudly about Bush's selection of Nixon-Ford appointees like Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Kissinger in his administration and in Iraq war planning. Yet only on Keith Olbermann last night did I hear about Ford's grave reservations about Iraq.

Also, GOP pundits (and these days, networks like CNN and most of MSNBC don't even bother with any pretense of giving equal time to non-GOP pundits) keep driving home the message that Ford was a major supporter of both the current president and the people managing Iraq with no discussion of how Ford's opinion changed remarkably as early as late 2003-early 2004. Network interviewers, when they talk to such pundits, do not challenge statements that Ford was a big fan of Bush and his Iraq implementation.