Fred Hiatt, writing for the Washington Post, notes how Senator John Rockefeller, chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, has been erroneously fueling the “Bush Lied” meme:

Search the Internet for “Bush Lied” products, and you will find sites that offer more than a thousand designs. The basic “Bush Lied, People Died” bumper sticker is only the beginning.

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, set out to provide the official foundation for what has become not only a thriving business but, more important, an article of faith among millions of Americans. And in releasing a committee report Thursday, he claimed to have accomplished his mission, though he did not use the L-word.

“In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even nonexistent,” he said.

Despite the rhetoric of Rockefeller and other liberals desperate to hold on to the long-debunked notion that Bush lied, Hiatt points out that when you actually read the report, their rhetoric doesn’t match the report’s findings (emphasis mine):

[…] dive into Rockefeller’s report, in search of where exactly President Bush lied about what his intelligence agencies were telling him about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, and you may be surprised by what you find.

On Iraq’s nuclear weapons program? The president’s statements “were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates.”

On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president’s statements “were substantiated by intelligence information.”

On chemical weapons, then? “Substantiated by intelligence information.”

On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.” Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? “Generally substantiated by available intelligence.” Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.”

As you read through the report, you begin to think maybe you’ve mistakenly picked up the minority dissent. But, no, this is the Rockefeller indictment. So, you think, the smoking gun must appear in the section on Bush’s claims about Saddam Hussein’s alleged ties to terrorism.

But statements regarding Iraq’s support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information.” Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda “were substantiated by the intelligence assessments,” and statements regarding Iraq’s contacts with al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information.” The report is left to complain about “implications” and statements that “left the impression” that those contacts led to substantive Iraqi cooperation.

Hiatt also debunks the left’s claim that Bush misrepresented intelligence.

In the report’s final section, the committee takes issue with Bush’s statements about Saddam Hussein’s intentions and what the future might have held. But was that really a question of misrepresenting intelligence, or was it a question of judgment that politicians are expected to make?

After all, it was not Bush, but Rockefeller, who said in October 2002: “There has been some debate over how ‘imminent’ a threat Iraq poses. I do believe Iraq poses an imminent threat. I also believe after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated. . . . To insist on further evidence could put some of our fellow Americans at risk. Can we afford to take that chance? I do not think we can.”

Rockefeller was reminded of that statement by the committee’s vice chairman, Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), who with three other Republican senators filed a minority dissent that includes many other such statements from Democratic senators who had access to the intelligence reports that Bush read. The dissenters assert that they were cut out of the report’s preparation, allowing for a great deal of skewing and partisanship, but that even so, “the reports essentially validate what we have been saying all along: that policymakers’ statements were substantiated by the intelligence.”

This is not the first time Rockefeller has signed his name to a report with findings that A, B, and C, but then went off to the media saying the findings were X, Y, and Z. The fact is this isn’t even new information… There have been several past investigations/reports that have all come to the same conclusion: there was no manipulation of intelligence prior to the Iraq war. Rockefeller is unfit to be the chairman of the intelligence committee, and the “Bush lied” crowd has to come to terms with the fact Rockefeller and other anti-Iraq war Democrats lied… not President Bush.

…because integrity isn’t important and corruption doesn’t matter to Democrats.

MORE: Is Al Franken really the change Democrats are looking for?

UPDATE: DFL feminist leader resigns over Franken Endorsement

It’s stories like these that prove that Obama’s general election electability has been grossly overestimated by his loyal followers.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who wrapped his party’s presidential nomination just this week, is already besieged by liberal constituencies demanding that he cut military spending to boost social programs.

Two influential liberal groups have sent the presumptive Democratic nominee a letter pressing him to support cuts to defense programs to pay for universal preschool, relief for Americans facing foreclosure on their homes and expanded benefits for military veterans.

The demands carry weight because the groups, the Black Leadership Forum and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), represent two constituencies that are important to Obama’s political strategy: blacks and Hispanics.

Their calls for defense cuts have drawn the support of leading House liberals, many of whom gave Obama crucial support early in his contest against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).
[…]
Since clinching the party’s nomination on Tuesday, Obama has already tacked to the right on security issues in preparation for the general election. During a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Wednesday, Obama proposed sanctions on Iran that analysts viewed as far tougher than what he suggested before.

Now Obama must balance tough talk on national security with the desires of many Democrats to slim American military power.

Of course, his desire for tea parties with terrorists isn’t exactly what I call tough talk on national security, but the point is still relevant. Liberal special interests don’t want our country to be a military power — and I’m certain Obama doesn’t either, but he can’t be too honest about it on the campaign trail, especially now that he needs to appeal to general election voters, not just the far left voters of the Democratic Primaries.

I think that the closer we get to Election Day, the more Obama will have to find some balance between his far left ideology with general election rhetoric. How can he please the liberal special interests while maintaining electability in November? He can’t.

Obama won’t be just feeling pressure from liberal special interests, but from within the Democratic Party itself.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), co-chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the rapid growth of defense spending compared to domestic spending in recent years is “outrageous.” She wants to slim defense programs and boost education and healthcare funding.

Lee and other House liberals would like to see about $60 billion in defense spending cuts. Specifically, they want to steer money away from what they call “Cold War-era” weapons systems, such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Liberals have also called for cuts to the ballistic missile defense program, the F/A-22 Raptor, the V-22 Osprey and the DDG 1000 Zumwalt Class Destroyer.

“This is one of many issues the caucus will be talking about to him,” Lee said of plans to press Obama on defense budget cuts. “I’m definitely going to present this.”

And we’re definitely going to be interested in Obama’s response.

Considering Obama’s positions on many issues… I would say DeLay is spot on.

Former House Republican Leader Tom DeLay (Texas) called Barack Obama a “Marxist” on the Mike Gallagher radio show Thursday.

Explaining that Obama clinching the Democratic nomination is a good thing for John McCain, DeLay said Obama’s “weakness” is that “nobody knows him.”

“And if McCain does not define him as what he is — hey, I have said publicly, and I will again, that unless he proves me wrong, he is a Marxist,” DeLay said.

The radio host agreed with DeLay, who is facing money laundering, charges [and will never go to trial because the charges are bogus –ed.] saying Obama is “desperately trying to cover up what seems to be the kind of old school Marxist radical liberal failed ideology.”

“Absolutely,” DeLay said. “No doubt about it.”

The economy was doing a lot better before the Democrats controlled congress…

Pink slips piled up and jobs disappeared into thin air in May as the nation’s unemployment rate zoomed to 5.5 percent in the biggest one-month jump in decades. Wall Street swooned, and the White House said President Bush was considering new proposals to revive the economy.

Help-wanted signs are vanishing along with jobs, so the unemployment rate is likely to keep climbing, a government report indicated, underscoring the toll the housing and credit crises are taking on jobseekers, employers and the economy as a whole.

Adding to the pain, oil prices soared to a new record high, while the value of the dollar fell.

The Dow Jones industrials tumbled almost 400 points.

If you want the economy to move in the right direction then vote Republican in November.

Ann Coulter points out the obvious:

Words mean nothing to liberals. They say whatever will help advance their cause at the moment, switch talking points in a heartbeat, and then act indignant if anyone uses the exact same argument they were using five minutes ago.

When Gore won the popular vote in the 2000 election by half a percentage point, but lost the Electoral College — or, for short, “the constitutionally prescribed method for choosing presidents” — anyone who denied the sacred importance of the popular vote was either an idiot or a dangerous partisan.

But now Hillary has won the popular vote in a Democratic primary, while Obambi has won under the rules. In a spectacular turnabout, media commentators are heaping sarcasm on our plucky Hillary for imagining the “popular vote” has any relevance whatsoever.

Sounds just about right. For Democrats, rules are only important when they work in their favor. in 2000, Democrats wanted to abolish the Electoral College. In 2004, Democrats wants to challenge the results of Ohio. Mathematically it was impossible for Kerry to edge out a victory in the state, but even if they could have stolen the state by a couple thousand votes, Kerry would have achieved an electoral victory without winning the popular vote.

Coulter makes an interesting case for Hillary to take her fight to the convention… which considering Hillary didn’t drop out today as she was allegedly going to… she may be contemplating such a strategy.

Hillary’s argument that she won the popular vote is manifestly relevant to that determination. Our brave Hillary has every right to take her delegates to the Democratic National Convention and put her case to a vote. She is much closer to B. Hussein Obama than the sainted Teddy Kennedy was to Carter in 1980 when Teddy staged an obviously hopeless rules challenge at the convention. (I mean rules about choosing the candidate, not rules about crushed ice at after-parties.)

And yet every time Hillary breathes a word about her victory in the popular vote, TV hosts respond with sneering contempt at her gaucherie for even mentioning it. (Of course, if popularity mattered, networks like MSNBC wouldn’t exist. That’s a station that depends entirely on “superviewers.”)

After nearly eight years of having to listen to liberals crow that Bush was “selected, not elected,” this is a shocking about-face. Apparently unaware of the new party line that the popular vote amounts to nothing more than warm spit, just last week HBO ran its movie “Recount,” about the 2000 Florida election, the premise of which is that sneaky Republicans stole the presidency from popular vote champion Al Gore. (Despite massive publicity, the movie bombed, with only about 1 million viewers, so now HBO is demanding a “recount.”)

Liberal hypocrisy? How shocking!

Politico’s Ben Smith reports…

Sen. Barack Obama on Thursday batted down rumors circulating on the Internet and mentioned on some cable news shows of the existence of a video of his wife using a derogatory term for white people, and criticized a reporter for asking him about the rumor, which has not a shred of evidence to support it.

“We have seen this before. There is dirt and lies that are circulated in e-mails and they pump them out long enough until finally you, a mainstream reporter, asks me about it,” Obama said to the McClatchy reporter during a press conference aboard his campaign plane. “That gives legs to the story. If somebody has evidence that myself or Michelle or anybody has said something inappropriate, let them do it.”

Asked whether he knew it not to be true, Obama said he had answered the question

Now it appears to me that Obama isn’t so much denying that his wife gave such a rant, but rather denying the existence of the video (which has yet to be released if it exists) and he’s also choosing to attack the messenger for daring to ask about it.

Now, I don’t know if the videotape exists. But, I’m wondering why Obama didn’t say “The tape cannot possibly exists because my wife never has made any comments like that.” But, it doesn’t appear from Ben Smith’s report that Obama made such a definitive denial. His response sounded more like a strategically crafted response a politician gives when they don’t want to lie just in case whatever they are trying to hide does become exposed.

Obama’s focus on attacking the messenger seems highly suspect.

This video, compiled by the RNC says it all … and it’s all said by Democrats about Obama..

Videos like this need to be shown throughout this campaign.

So… the question of the day, who should McCain pick as his running mate, and who should Obama pick as his?

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: Seems that one of Obama’s VP researchers – former Fannie Mae chief Jim Johnson – has some problems…Byron York over at NRO stating that an oversight report indicates mismanagement when Johnson was in charge, and that the size of his salary was hidden from the public. Change you can believe in? Only if you believe in the Tooth Fairy.