Watching this Bush presser, one thing about Republicans: man, they dispatch their dead quickly, don’t they? I thought the most revealing line so far of the press conference was when Bush said he still hasn’t spoken to Rumsfeld or Gates. The exact phrase was something like ‘final conversation’. But I think the meaning there was clear.
Late Update: Okay, I think this presser may actually set a record for open and shut contradictions. But about five minutes after saying he hadn’t had his final convos, he just said that he had. In the course of the last few minutes he’s also said both that he hadn’t decided to replace Rummy pre-election, and that he had. I think he also said he lied to the reporters in the pre-election conversation he had on Rumsfeld.
Later Update: I haven’t seen the transcript yet. But a number of readers have written in to say that they think I may have misheard some of the passages in the president’s remarks about final conversations and who talked to whom when.
