White House Snow Job: No lie is too big to tell.

Over the last six years, the Bush White House has taken full advantage of "the big lie" strategy. When things get particularly rough, and someone get caught in a lie that even Houdini could not escape from, they tell an even bigger one.

A quick learner, White House press secretary Tony Snow (a former Fox News talking head reknowned for parroting the Republican Party line while claiming to be an unbiased news reporter) is well on his way to eclipsing his precessor, Scott McClellan. The reader will recall that McClellan had to be sacrificed back in April because even the pathetically submissive White House press core openly rebelled, and finally confronted him on the outrageous lies he would brazenly float at press conferences.

The latest dose of bald-faced White House lies surrounds the recent fighting in Lebanon and the president's first time speech to the NAACP.

SNOW: (After being asked what Bush has done for African Americans over the last five years.) "Well, for one thing, the President has done consistent outreach with African Americans. Look, this is a President, you take a look at his political career, what has George W. Bush done, he's tried to do outreach. He understands that there was a history in which the Republican Party was seen as the active enemy of black voters in this country. It's one of the reasons why you have such lopsided Democratic majorities.

As governor of Texas, between his first and second elections he doubled the percentage of black voters. He considers that important, not because he views black voters as a constituency*, but because he believes that for an America to be whole and fulfill the American Dream you can't be divided along racial lines. And so as a consequence, it's important."

THE SLIME: So Tony threw us a curve ball and actually told the truth, i.e., that Bush doesn't consider African Americans a constituency and the Republican Party is an active enemy of black voters. But Tony more than made up for this slip by claiming that Bush, who once squashed his Republican opponent John McCain in a South Carolina primary by circulating flyers referring to McCain's wife as a "mullato," doesn't want America to be divided along racial lines.

SNOW: "No, our policy hasn't changed. Our hopes haven't changed, either -- which is that we hope that there will be a cessation of violence in Lebanon."

THE SLIME: A 7.5 on the lie-like-a-rug scale. On the contrary, Bush has publically stated that he is opposed to any cessation of violence until Israel achieves it's military and political goals.

SNOW: "Why would it (Lebanon) be our war?"

THE SLIME: Perhaps because we are sending Israel 1.5 to 2 billion a year in military aid.

SNOW: "This is a war in which the United States -- it's not even a war. What you have are hostilities, at this point, between Israel and Hezbollah. I would not characterize it as a war."

THE SLIME: Vietnam was never considered a war either.

SNOW: "The United States' position is, you're absolutely right, to try to protect democracy and also those who are threats to the region, to address it. What you have is a democracy in the Siniora government that we want to see survive and thrive. "

THE SLIME: Democracy was not only a bogus cover story for the invasion of Iraq, it's also the last thing Bush really wants to see in the region. Case in point: Democracy for the Palestinians = a Hamas government which Bush immediately refused to recognize.

SNOW: "And what they (the terrorists) end up doing is jeopardizing those sovereign nations and using murder and killing as a way either to weaken the will of the people involved, or to try to weaken the cause of peace and stability in the region. "

THE SLIME: Maybe we should remind Tony that Iraq was a soverign state before we invaded her, and that our invasion has caused the deaths of 100,000 people and resulted in the destabilization of the entire country and an emerging civil war.

SNOW: "Yes, and the assumption is that we're sitting around at the war map saying, do this, this and this. And as I've said over and over, we're not engaged in military strategy sessions with the Israelis. We're not colluding, we're not cooperating, we're not conspiring -- we're not doing any of that. The Israelis are doing what they think is necessary to protect their borders. "

THE SLIME: This one is a 10.5 on the lie-like-a-rug scale. Nobody but nobody hands over 1.5 billion a year in military aid without a strong measure of control."