From one of J. Scott Barnard's Comments below:

Bush didn't put a big 'ol footprint in the middle of Iraq because of WMD, haven't you folks realized this by now? It was simply ONE of the excuses he used among many for intervention.

You heard it right: WMD was one of the "excuses" Bush used.  Sounds like our 43rd President wasn't being honest with the people of the United States of America, and made up an "excuse" for invading Iraq.  Remember, he started talking about regime change and it polled horribly.  So out came the WMD story, which caught on like wildfire with a good chunk of the folks at home.

I think it is a President's duty to be honest with people for the reasons behind his policy decisions, especially decisions as momentous as going forth to war against another nation.  Bush failed to be honest with us.  His failure to be honest then is exactly the reason he has continued to fall in the eyes of ordinary Americans.

Not surprisingly his fall has accelerated because he continues to fail to tell the truth today.  Remember the beginnings of the Social Security debate?  Bush started out talking about a Social Security "crisis."  When sober, non-partisan analyses from both the OMB and the Social Security Trustees showed the benefit crunch in conservative scenarios coming decades in the future, the White House backed off from that claim.  Bush's people also dropped their claim that the accounts would solve the now non-existent "crisis" when called on that one as well.

Bush wants to get rid of Social Security for one reason and one reason only: he has turned a record surplus into a deficit which drags down our economy and binds each and every young person in America to pay off his debts to Asian central banks--and the Social Security Trust fund.  By getting rid of Social Security a large proportion of IOU's lent by the Trust Fund can be written off--in other words, he wants us to pay for his folly.

Trust me Scott, us folks "realized" Bush wasn't invading Iraq because of WMD the minute he started talking about it.  We also "realize" that he cares not a whit for the solvency of Social Security.

More of J. Scott Barnard at Burton Terrace.