It bugs the ever living heck out of me when I hear people misusing the term “lie”.

LIE: To present false information with the intention of deceiving.

Here we have two cases, George W. Bush and Iraq, and Scooter Libby and this stupid Plame issue.

On the first, we have George W. Bush who, along with the war against terror, based on information he was given by his support staff, presented the cause for a war against Iraq. Contrary to popular belief, the President doesn’t do the majority of his research (the same goes for most in Congress). This is what White House aides are for, they dive into piles of information, decipher what they feel is necessary to present to their higher ups, and file reports.

Based on this, it becomes VERY hard for me, or anyone to (currently) point the finger at George Bush and claim that he “lied” to us. In order for him to have lied, he would have had to have known, without a doubt that the information he was presenting to the public was 100% false. Being that anything we can assume is pure speculation since there isn’t solid proof that he lied, claiming that he did so, is purely ignorant. Now before you go off about the Downing Street Memo’s etc. etc., much of the “proof” is in the form of misinformation. If you give someone false or misleading information and they report based on that information, they are not lying, because as stated earlier, to lie you have to KNOW that the information is untrue. Prove to me, beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bush KNEW he was presenting false information during the buildup to the Iraq War, and I will call him a liar.

In the case of Scooter Libby, we have a man that, under oath presented a series of events that led to a conclusion in a criminal investigation. Those events were found not to be accurate, and thus, Scooter Libby has committed perjury. Since he has thus committed a crime by lying under oath, Libby should and could very well, serve time in jail for his actions. Note that (unlike the left’s perception of the Clinton impeachment) Clinton was impeached for this very same premise. He presented information under oath, that was proven to be false, and it was proven that he knew it was false when he was under oath, thus… impeachment. Clinton was not impeached because he got some in his office.