When you can’t even keep the lies straight …
This morning in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania President Bush told a crowd: “My opponent says he has a plan for Iraq. Parts of it should sound pretty familiar — it’s already known as the Bush plan.”
Then about a minute later he said: “In Iraq, Senator Kerry has a strategy of retreat; I have a strategy of victory.”
Oops …
Late Update: A few readers have written in to say that what President Bush said between these two sentences takes away any sense of contradiction. Specifically, he says that there is one thing that distinguishes the “Bush plan” from the “Kerry plan”. Looking back over it, I think that’s a fair point. But, on the merits, what he says in between is just flat-out false, a lie.
Here’s the key passage: “There was one element of the Senator — there’s one element of Senator Kerry’s plan that’s a new element. He’s talked about artificial timetables to pull our troops out of Iraq. He sent the signal that America’s overriding goal in Iraq would be to leave, even if the job isn’t done.”
Kerry hasn’t set any timetables. He’s said he hopes to bring back some troops by next summer. But he’s bent over backwards to say that that would be determined by the situation on the ground at the time. As to his saying that the overriding goal is to leave rather than get the job done, that’s explicitly the opposite of what Kerry and Edwards have been saying again and again.
They just make the stuff up. Like Cheney never meeting Edwards.
