The meme has an exact meaning: That the Bush administration, with malice aforethought, deliberately attempted to deceive Congress, the public, and whoever it may concern in order to go to war with Iraq.

When you read a political statement containing the words "Bush lied," this is what you are hearing. You are not hearing "Bush made a mistake," or "the CIA misread the data," or other reasonable doubts and worries such as you express and others here have expressed.

The word "lie" has an exact meaning. The phrase "Bush lied" has over 47,000 hits on Google. It is not a phrase used only on Democrats.com, or by radical loonies. It has been used by otherwise respected and well-known people. It has been used by Democratic national leaders.

"WEEK AFTER WEEK AFTER WEEK AFTER WEEK, WE WERE TOLD LIE AFTER LIE AFTER LIE AFTER LIE!!," -Sen. Ted Kennedy

That meme is what is being refuted here, and has been solidly refuted a number of times in the past. It was beaten slowly to death during the "sixteen words" controversy, and many leftists haven't let go of that one yet, either.

It does not mean that everything that was honestly thought would be in Iraq was in fact where it was supposed to be when we finally gained full access to the nation--access the U.N. would never have gotten.

It does not mean that the CIA and other international intelligence agencies may not have misinterpreted the intent and capabilities of a regime which had convinced even its own generals that they had WMD available to them.

It does not mean that honest mistakes may not have been made.

It means there was no deliberate lying. And this is an important distinction.

That being said, the evidence is not all in yet, and from what I am hearing, there may yet be surprises in this area.

And while stockpiles of WMD have not yet been found, there has been sufficient evidence found to convince me that Saddam did at the very least still have the ambition and infrastructure to develop such weaponry, and would have resumed such work as soon as the heat was off.

And there has certainly been objective evidence found since the war to prove that Saddam was, at the time of the invasion, violating U.N. restrictions and resolutions six ways from Sunday. The missile work alone is enough to convict him in that regard.

The only way I can "erode the truth" is by presenting falsehoods. If I am, point them out.

But I have one question. If 911 never happened would we have done the same thing? And if not, we had no business doing what we did - the way it was done.

No, if 9/11 had not happened, we would not have done the same thing. And Bush would be the first to tell you so. The attack on our homeland changed a number of paradigms, and that our foreign and domestic policy would have to be modified went without saying.

You may have legitimate arguments about exactly WHAT we did--many reasonable liberals believe the attack on Afghanistan was acceptable, while the attack on Iraq was not. Some liberals think both were okay. Some think neither. Some think we should have gone after Iran instead, or even Saudi Arabia. And I can find conservatives in every one of those same categories.

But to make the statement that we would have no business taking action after an attack on us, if we had no business taking the same action before such an attack, is a bit silly. Bombing Tokyo before Pearl Harbor would have been an entirely different moral and political act than bombing Tokyo after Pearl Harbor, even though both actions would have been the same tactically.