Historically, American Presidents misled the American people when the US went to war. The recent Iraqi intelligence that was altered to make the case for the war shows how deep the problem is.

Even though Donald Rumsfeld asserted that the faulty intellgence presented at the U.N. Security Council was an honest mistake that let him down, it is still plausible that the Bush administration put a spin on the intelligence in order to mislead the nation to the unnecessary war.

The Congressional investigation on this case may reveal the Bush administration's culpability. If that is the case, the Bush administration should clean up its own house and the perpetrators should be put on trial.

The US cannot act as a global policeman if it violates international law by itself. Even though other intelligence indicated that Iran has a stronger link with al-Qaueda, the Bush administration chose Iraq as its target for another "democratization project" in the Muslim world. The antagonism between Saddam and the Bush dynasty since the end of the 1991 Gulf War has clouded President Bush's judgement.

Clerke accuses Rice for her lack of knowledge on al-Qaeda, which she did not even recognize the name of the terror organization when Clerke urged her to take action. Rice was a Cold War scholar who has had a hard time adjusting to the reality of the post-Cold War world. The systematic obstruction and inaction of the Bush administration to pursue al-Quaeda is the main cause of 9/11 as the author asserts.

Lying has become pervasive in American life but what happens when the falsehoods are perpetrated by the Oval Office? As the lies told by our government become more and more intricate, they begin to weave a tapestry of deception that creates problems far larger than those lied about in the first place.

Eric Alterman's When Presidents Lie is a compelling historical examination of four specific post-World War II presidential lies whose consequences were greater than could ever have been predicted. FDR told the American people that peace was secure in Europe, setting the stage for McCarthyism and the cold war. John F. Kennedy's unyielding stance during the Cuban missile crisis masked his secret deal with the Soviet Union. Misrepresented aggression at the Gulf of Tonkin by the North Vietnamese gave LBJ the power to start a war. Finally, Ronald Reagan's Central American wars ended in the ignominy of the Iran-contra scandal and helped lead, inexorably, to George W. Bush's "Post-Truth" Presidency.

In light of George W. Bush's war in Iraq, which Alterman examines in the book's conclusion, When Presidents Lie is a warning more relevant today than ever before that the only way to prevent these lies is America's collective demand for truth.