George W. Bush

David Corn: Bush lying or making it up?

David Corn has caught Bush either lying about or making up the existence of a gay-adoption study during his press conference last week. The bigger question is this: does Bush outright lie or is he just grossly mininformed on a great many things?

During a press conference on Thursday, Bush, replying to a question about gay adoption, said, "Studies have shown that the ideal is where a child is raised in a married family with a man and a woman." Ignore the predictably irritating syntax and focus on his unequivocal assertion. Bush was stating as a fact that such studies exist.

Bush was wrong. He said these studies exist; they do not. So what happened? Did Bush have any reason to believe there are such studies? Had he received an erroneous briefing, say? Or did he just make something up that sounded good? If that is the case, would that not be a lie?

Without any hard empirical evidence, I would guess that the ratio is 60/20/20. 60% lies. 20% making it up. 20% misinformed by the Bubble Boy Good News Squad.