President Bush’s comments today on the al Qaqaa matter are so telling, disjointed and over-the-top that it’s really worth reprinting them in full (with the most rancid or ridiculous passages emphasized courtesy of the TPM editorial staff) …
A President must be consistent. After repeatedly calling Iraq the wrong war and a diversion, Senator Kerry this week seemed shocked to learn that Iraq was a dangerous place full of dangerous weapons. (Laughter.) The Senator used to know that, even though he seems to have forgotten it over the course of this campaign. But, after all, that’s why we went into Iraq. Iraq was a dangerous place, run by a dangerous tyrant who hated America and who had a lot of weapons. We’ve seized or destroyed more than 400,000 tons of munitions, including explosives, at more than thousands of sites. And we’re continuing to round up the weapons almost every day.
I want to remind the American people, if Senator Kerry had his way, we would still be taking our global test.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: Saddam Hussein would still be in power.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: He would control all those weapons and explosives and could have shared them with our terrorist enemies.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: Now the Senator is making wild charges about missing explosives, when his top foreign policy advisor admits “we don’t know the facts.” End quote. Think about that. The Senator is denigrating the actions of our troops and commanders in the field without knowing the facts. Unfortunately, that’s part of the pattern of saying anything it takes to get elected. Like when he charged that our military failed to get Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora, even though our top military commander, General Tommy Franks, said, “The Senator’s understanding of events does not square with reality,” and intelligence reports place bin Laden in any of several different countries at the time.
See, our military is now investigating a number of possible scenarios, including this one — that explosives may have been moved before our troops even arrived, even arrived at the site. The investigation is important and ongoing. And a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not the person you want as the Commander-in-Chief. (Applause.)
If you’re wondering about the all the ‘boo’ and ‘applause’ lines, we’re working from the White House transcript.
By the way, did you understand his <$NoAd$>answer?
