The Prez Conference

"A country that hides something is a country that is afraid of getting caught." (Was that chuckling we heard from the press?)

"But there was a -- nobody in our government, at least, and I don't think the prior government, could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive scale."

... Well, maybe he hadn't heard of the Genoa warnings, right? Wrong...

"And the reason I did is because there had been a lot of threat intelligence from overseas. And so -- part of it had to do with Genoa, the G8 conference that I was going to attend."

Oh right... THOSE warnings.

"He was a threat because he had used weapons of mass destruction on his own people."

... twenty years ago... with chemicals we sold him ... after which we loaned him a billion dollars. This is one of the more ridiculous after-the-fact justifications for the Iraq war and I'm a little bit disgusted everytime it is regurgitated to the American public. It directly insults our intelligence.

And finally this example of good old fashioned straight talk....

Q Mr. President, why are you and the Vice President insisting on appearing together before the 9/11 Commission? ...

THE PRESIDENT: ... because the 9/11 Commission wants to ask us questions, that's why we're meeting. And I look forward to meeting with them and answering their questions.

Q I was asking why you're appearing together, rather than separately, which was their request.

THE PRESIDENT: Because it's a good chance for both of us to answer questions that the 9/11 Commission is looking forward to asking us, and I'm looking forward to answering them.

Let's see --
(Hands shoot up all over the room... because Bush has not answered the question)
Q Mr. President --

THE PRESIDENT: Hold on for a minute. Oh, Jim.

Q Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: I've got some "must calls," I'm sorry.

Although the President said "Oh, Jim," he called upon Bill Sammon... a Fox News/Washington Times GOP lackey who was guaranteed to change the subject. And he sure did, serving up a limp and fawning question about how it sure must be tough to be President because people criticize you when you do act pre-emptively and they criticize you when you don't act pre-emptively.

Overall, I thought Bush's performance was close to self-parody. Bush used the words "free" or "freedom" 50 times, by my count, but outlined no semblance of a plan to achieve a peace in Iraq. He answered every question by shaking up his magic 8 ball of stock phrases and throwing a few out there. He even dropped a vague accusation that those who don't believe that his plan to invade Iraq was well thought-out must be racists. He alternated between rabidly declaring that he feels "strongly" about "freedom" and biting his lip in dull silence while shaking that magic 8 ball in his head.