The muck has risen to the top.

 
The Muck has risen to the top and the Press is finally smelling it

Dan Eggen and Julie Tate, writing the article FEW CONVICTIONS IN CASES TIED TO NATIONAL SECURITY for the Washington Post Service, addressed the "Exaggerated Claims" of the Bush Administration's effort to justify the Patriot Act.

"Exaggerated" is of course a standard euphemism for "lying". "Prevarication" is a better term to characterize the lying about the Patriotic Act, in the sense of saying something good to achieve bad ends, or twisting truths into lies.

For instance, President Bush repeated the lie already exposed as false by the Press some time ago:

"Federal terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against more than 400 suspects, and more than half have been convicted."

The reporters state that the "numbers are misleading at best." 39 not 200 people have been convicted of crimes related to national security or terrorism. Most of the others had little or nothing to do with terrorism.

In fact, according to the Post investigation, besides a very small number of well-known cases, like the guy who wanted to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge, very few suspects were involved in active plots. 180 persons had no demonstrable connection to terroris or terrorist groups. Only 14 convicted persons had apparent links to al Qaeda.

What is troubling is that many people were caught up in the investigation by chance sweeps and are still terrorism defendents years after being cleared of connections to extremist groups.

The front pages of newspapers are literally smeared with headlines over reports indicating that the Bush Adminstration constitutes a pack of liars.

But never mind, for anyone who is not fer us is agin us, and anyone agin the Patriot Act is un-Patriotic.