The Bush Follow-Up to Cheney

Like any good tag team operation, we were sure to hear from Bush on the Amnesty International brouhaha, and sure enough we did. Yesterday's Times ran Bush Defends Detainee Treatment and Cites 'Stalling' on Bolton, where we learn the following:

The Amnesty International accusations struck him as being based in part on "allegations by people who were held in detention, people who hate America," he said.

My post on this yesterday, Amnesty International & Dick Cheney provided the following quote from our vice president:

''Occasionally there are allegations of mistreatment,'' Cheney said. ''But if you trace those back, in nearly every case, it turns out to come from somebody who had been inside and released to their home country and now are peddling lies about how they were treated.''

Well, it's nice to see that they're both on message, though it would seem that they gave G.W. fewer words to have to use to express himself with (ok, cheap shot, but I couldn't help myself.) I like the way both of them quibble about the origins of the allegations in question. Bush tells us that they "...are based in part ...", and Cheney tells us "... in nearly every case ...", without qualifying that the exceptions to whatever the general rule may be happens to include FBI agents who reported on the abuse themselves (see yesterday's post if this comes as a surprise to you.) So on the whole they're not telling us a lie, they're just not telling us a fully qualified truth --- gee, does this sound familiar?