The War Within - Lying to the American People

I am in the middle of reading Bob Woodward's latest book, The War Within - A Secret White House History, 2006 - 2008. I am not going to do another review or debate the disagreement within the government, the military, the surge, which were already being discussed elsewhere (although I would never limit myself). But I do want to touch on my impressions on the smaller and maybe more obscure points that the mainstream press would likely overlook. So, I will start with the first one here and more later.

Throughout this book and previous reports, high level government officials, including Rice, Rumsfeld, Pace, Casey, Abizald, and others, have serious doubt on the strategy in Iraq and often have contradicting public versus private view. Yet, they would to Congress and lie to their teeth that the strategy was working and things are going well, but in reality, they are not.

Excuse me. I thought lying to Congress is a crime. It is committing perjury. Remember the baseball steroid hearings, the District Attorney firing hearings, and of course, the Monica hearings. People are threatening to tell the truth or go to jail.

But yet, as you compare their testimony versus what is reported, these high level government officials lied and lied and lied to Congress and the American people. And they always get away with it. No wonder the American people hate Washington.