Defenders of President Bush's decision to use the by-now infamous 16 words in his State of the Union address have challenged critics to identify the lie in the statement.

The lie resides in the fact that Bush's CIA knew that the Niger uranium documents were bogus, and this fact cannot have escaped Pres. Bush, his National Security Advisor Rice, VP Cheney, and other high administration officials, no matter what the British thought, or had "learned."

A lie is an attempt to deceive. By ignoring the findings of his own CIA, and attributing the Niger uranium intelligence to Britian, President Bush was being deceptive.

In the words of John Dean:

"Presidential statements, particularly on matters of national security, are held to an expectation of the highest standard of truthfulness. A president cannot stretch, twist or distort facts and get away with it. President Lyndon Johnson's distortions of the truth about Vietnam forced him to stand down from reelection. President Richard Nixon's false statements about Watergate forced his resignation."

Sources, and more here

It's still a lie, and that is a fact.

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