Bush's Pants on Fire!

I have a great deal of respect for two reporters at WaPo. Walter Pincus and Dana Milbank. Neither folded on the Iraq untelligence issue. In fact, both were named in a very elite group of reporters singled out for praise by the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland, in their now widely known critique of the press corps regarding Iraq Intelligence -- WMD specifically.

Today -- actually it's in tomorrow's edition of the WaPo -- they set the record straight about Kerry's 'weak on defense' attack by Bush. Here's a bit:

President Bush, in his first major assault on Sen. John F. Kerry's legislative record, said this week that his Democratic opponent proposed a $1.5 billion cut in the intelligence budget, a proposal that would "gut the intelligence services," and one that had no co-sponsors because it was "deeply irresponsible."

In terms of accuracy, the parry by the president is about half right. Bush is correct that Kerry on Sept. 29, 1995, proposed a five-year, $1.5 billion cut to the intelligence budget. But Bush appears to be wrong when he said the proposed Kerry cut -- about 1 percent of the overall intelligence budget for those years -- would have "gutted" intelligence. In fact, the Republican-led Congress that year approved legislation that resulted in $3.8 billion being cut over five years from the budget of the National Reconnaissance Office -- the same program Kerry said he was targeting.

The $1.5 billion cut Kerry proposed represented about the same amount Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), then chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told the Senate that same day he wanted cut from the intelligence spending bill based on unspent, secret funds that had been accumulated by one intelligence agency "without informing the Pentagon, CIA or Congress." The NRO, which designs, builds and operates spy satellites, had accumulated that amount of excess funds.

Bush's charge that Kerry's broader defense spending reduction bill had no co-sponsors is true, but not because it was seen as irresponsible, as the president suggested. Although Kerry's measure was never taken up, Specter's plan to reduce the NRO's funds, which Kerry co-sponsored with Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), did become law as part of a House-Senate package endorsed by the GOP leadership.

In his campaign speech Monday, Bush said that in 1995, "two years after the [first] attack on the World Trade Center, my opponent introduced a bill to cut the overall intelligence budget by one-and-a-half billion dollars. His bill was so deeply irresponsible that he didn't have a single co-sponsor in the United States Senate. Once again, Senator Kerry is trying to have it both ways. He's for good intelligence, yet he was willing to gut the intelligence services. And that is no way to lead a nation in a time of war."

Bush repeated the charge in New York last night, saying, "Intelligence spending is necessary, not wasteful."

White House spokesman Trent Duffy referred questions about Monday's speech to the Bush-Cheney campaign because "it was a campaign speech." Terry Holt, spokesman for the campaign, said he will look into the origins of the speech because he did not know about the situation in 1995. But, he said, "The president was using one very appropriate example of Kerry's lack of commitment to the intelligence community."

On Sept. 29, 1995, Kerry introduced S. 1290, the "Responsible Deficit Reduction Act of 1995." On page 5 of the 16-page bill, Kerry proposed to "Reduce the Intelligence budget by $300 million in each of fiscal years 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000." The item was one of 17 cuts Kerry proposed from the Defense budget, including a phaseout of two Army light divisions and ending production of Trident D5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The bill also proposed 17 non-defense cuts, including ending the international space station and reducing federal support for agriculture research and various changes to government purchasing.

Much more at link

I think it bears stating here, that the total amount of cuts agreed to by the Senate was $3.8 billion dollars. Those damn weak on defense Senate Republicans!

It's good to know that there are still journalists with integrity out there, getting to the truth, rather than parroting sound bites.

I wonder if Bush knows this. Probably not. Not yet. I suspect he will very soon. If Specter and Shelby both wanted similar cuts -- and in fact were, along with Kerry, co-sponsors of the bill which later became law -- uncurious George has a tough row to hoe.

I think if Pincus and Milbank did the math, they'd find Bush's assertions about Kerry are nominal :)

What a sorry lot we've governing us. Why ever does the term laughingstock spring to mind?