A State Department release from Monday doctored remarks from U2′s Bono, twisting his quote to mean the very opposite of what he apparently believes. Here’s the State Department paragraph, two graphs below the lede [besides underlining, excerpt appears exactly as published]:

Bono, lead singer of the Irish band U2 and longtime activist for aid to Africa, echoed Geldof’s praise for President Bush as he told an American television interviewer June 26, “[Bush] has already doubled and tripled aid to Africa . I think he has done an incredible job, his administration, on AIDS. 250,000 Africans are on anti-viral drugs; they literally owe their lives to America.”

In fact, Bono only said the latter half of that quote during his appearance on Meet the Press last Sunday. The first part — “[Bush] has already doubled and tripled aid to Africa” — is deceptively transplanted from an interview Bono did with Time magazine that Tim Russert quoted on the show, and the State Department has taken it entirely out of context. Here’s the full quote:

Question: Which of the G8 leaders do you think remains the toughest nut to crack?

Bono: The most important and toughest nut is still President Bush. He feels he’s already doubled and tripled aid to Africa, which he started from far too low a place. He can stand there and say he paid at the office already. He shouldn’t because he’ll be left out of the history books. But it’s hard for him because of the expense of the war and the debts.

In other words, Bono was relaying President Bush’s claim (which he repeated during his press conference with Tony Blair this month) that his administration has tripled aid to Africa. Yet we know Bono does not believe that Bush has tripled aid to Africa. On Meet the Press, Bono said that while Bush has made a commitment to triple aid, that will only be the case “if he follows through” on that pledge.

This blatant dishonesty is even more relevant in light of the study by Susan Rice that Brookings released this week. Rice’s analysis showed that…

…U.S. aid to Africa from FY 2000 (the last full budget year of the Clinton Administration) to FY2004 (the last completed fiscal year of the Bush Administration) has not “tripled” or even doubled. Rather, in real dollars, it has increased 56% (or 67% in nominal dollar terms). The majority of that increase consists of emergency food aid, rather than assistance for sustainable development of the sort Africa needs to achieve lasting poverty reduction.

President Bush has repeatedly offered differing reasons for why we went to war in Iraq. Last night, we heard the latest and most egregious explanation — that we had to go to war in Iraq as a direct result of 9/11. Here is a list of a few of Bush’s reasons for going into Iraq:

Reason #1) Went to War As a Direct Result of 9/11

Bush: “The war reached our shores on September the 11th, 2001 Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war.” [Bush, 6/28/05]

Bush: “We went to war because we were attacked.” [Bush, 6/18/05]

Reason #2) WMD

Bush: “This is not about inspectors; this is about a disarmed Iraq. He has weapons of mass destruction — the world’s deadliest weapons — which pose a direct threat to the United States, our citizens and our friends and allies. He has been told to disarm for 11 long years. He’s not disarming.” [Bush, 1/21/03]

Reason #3) Links to Al Qaeda

Bush: “This is a man who, in my judgment, would like to use al-Qaeda as a forward army.” [Bush, 10/14/02]

Reason #4) Reform the Greater Middle East

Bush: “A free Iraq can be a source of hope for all of the Middle East. Instead of threatening its neighbors and harboring terrorists, Iraq can be an example of progress and prosperity in a region that needs both. [Bush, 2/20/03]

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Maybe you noticed: ThinkProgress got a makeover.

No major changes — mostly a sharper, simpler interface, more web-friendly colors, and some new java components — although we’ll be debuting a few more new features in the days to come.

Thoughts? Additions? Bugs? Drop us a comment.

The past few weeks have seen a number of positive steps toward righting the wrongs of the Jim Crow era. The Senate formally apologized for rejecting decades of pleas to make lynching a federal crime. Justice was finally served to Edgar Ray Killen, who murdered three civil rights workers in 1964. And new evidence (revealed in Keith A. Beauchamp’s film The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till) has sparked a new investigation into the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till.

Still many are asking, “Why bother?” Some — including Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS) — ask why we should apologize for the actions (or inactions) of senators long past. Others wonder why, after 50 years, the FBI has decided to reopen the Emmett Till case. Why not just leave the past — and the truth — buried?

The answer, I think, is found in the preamble of our Constitution, which contains the words “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and to our posterity.” The Founders were speaking for all Americans — past, present, and future. Surely no one alive today had any part in writing the Constitution or Declaration of Independence, but Americans proudly claim these documents as their own. But when the topics of slavery and crimes against Native Americans come up, no one wants to claim responsibility. President Kennedy was right: failure is an orphan.

America’s past failings belong to all Americans just as much as the Founders’ ideals and successes do. And so, rather than ask what the crimes of 50 years ago have to do with us, we should be asking our government to do more to right the wrongs. It’s time for us to confront our nation’s past of racial injustice head-on and do our best to make amends so we can more fully realize our Constitutional and democratic calling.

– Michael Thompson, CampusProgress

President Bush might continue to intimate that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and the September 11th attacks but Rep. Robin Hayes (R-NC), the vice chairman of the House subcommittee on terrorism, is stating it explicitly. In an interview on CNN, Hayes insisted, “Saddam Hussein and people like him were very much involved in 9/11.” When confronted with the findings of the 9/11 commission — who definitively concluded there was no evidence of a link between Saddam and 9/11 — Hayes retorted, “I’m sorry, but you must have looked in the wrong places.” Hayes then defended his position by asserting that “legislators have access to evidence others do not.”

We’re not sure what kind of evidence Hayes has access to but apparently he has higher clearance than U.S. weapons inspectors, CIA directors, counterterrorism experts, Secretaries of State, and even the President…because all those people have accepted the fact that Saddam was not connected to 9/11.

Stopglobalwarming.org is organizing a virtual march to raise awareness on global warming and to urge our leaders to put the country on a path towards a renewable energy future. There could not be a more important time to join this effort. The Senate just moved on this issue. The G8 is moving on this issue. Tony Blair is moving on this issue. Only President Bush and Vice President Cheney are still sitting on their duffs.

We can all get off ours and sign up for the virtual march. Please join the effort.