*** A few of his most trusted advisors (is. his brain) put together a group within the pentagon to sift through information and weed out only those things that propped up their arguments for war. ***

This may be true but if they knew there would be a chance they may not be able find any WOMD why would they put on  such a grand "dog and pony show" only to risk seeing it all blow up in their faces if this intelligence all proved to be false? It doesn't add up. If they knew it probably wasn't true, why didn't they just fake a find to save face? Why would they simply stop at lying if they are so corrupt and self serving?

*** It still doesn't explain, though, why George would stand in front of the nation during his SotU and use as an argument for war assertions that were known to be false. ***

This is my point; I really think he believed what he was being told.

*** I am bothered by those who say - I don't care if he lied about the reasons for war as long as Saddam is gone. ***

Me too. That was not the reason for action. If it was, public opinion and support would have been much different.

*** (Lying) I don't know - those seem like the same thing to me.....***

Again I agree. (yikes)  A lie is a lie, no matter who is in office. Unacceptable at this level.

To sum up....I still believe Bush actually believed what he was being told/fed by his intellegence people. He may not be the brightest bulb in the tree but he appears to have a high moral standard. This is why I don't believed he lied. We all know what most of the country thought of WJC after he was caught in a lie. I don't believe Bush would risk his popularity or his almost certain second term fabricating something that would easily be proven false.

But I could be wrong...