Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

October 03, 2004

Do They Just Make it Up?

Three articles make it hard not to conclude the Bush administration just makes stuff up about Iraq as they go along:

The Boston Globe reports Vice President Dick Cheney continues to link Saddam Hussen with the terrorists who struck America on 9/11. "Although the extent of any relationship between Al Qaeda and Hussein has been widely disputed, Cheney proceeds with his contention with nary a nod toward such questions."

Reuters notes that many of the "assertions about progress in Iraq" that President Bush made in the first debate -- "from police training and reconstruction to preparations for January elections -- are in dispute, according to internal Pentagon documents, lawmakers and key congressional aides."

Finally, in a front page story, the New York Times says the White House "embraced the theory that aluminum tubes bound for Iraq were for nuclear centrifuges despite contrary views from America's leading nuclear scientists."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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