Bush Loses, Again

In today's NYTimes Krugman points out important deceptions in Bush's Nov 30 presentation:

1. Bush claims that Iraq's oil production is improving, when in fact it is not.

2. Bush claims that the security situation is improving, when in fact it is deteriorating.

Krugman concludes:

"The point isn't just that the administration is trying, yet again, to deceive the public. It's the fact that this attempt at deception shows such contempt - contempt for the public, and especially contempt for the news media. And why not? The truth is that the level of misrepresentation in this new document is no worse than that in a typical speech by President Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney. Yet for much of the past five years, many major news organizations failed to provide the public with effective fact-checking.

So Mr. Bush's new public relations offensive on Iraq is a test. Are the news media still too cowed, too addicted to articles that contain little more than dueling quotes to tell the public when the administration is saying things that aren't true? Or has the worm finally turned?"