This morning's final press conference from President Bush was some real must-see television for anyone who simply must see what denial in action looks like. But our favorite moment came during Bush's response to the inevitable (and ultimately useless) question about whether he can name any mistakes during his presidency. According to Bush, "mission accomplished" was a mistake, Katrina not so much. But the highlight came in the following quote concerning the invasion of Iraq:
Not having weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment.
Wait, what? Iraq's failure to be in possession of weapons of mass destruction was disappointing to you? Has anyone ever said such a thing out loud? Forget presidents. Has any American ever said they were disappointed that a hostile country did not possess the power to destroy America?
The president followed that with, "I don't know if you want to call those mistakes or not..."
Yes, we do. We REALLY want to call that a mistake. Not only was invading a country for possession of WMDs when they didn't have them an enormous mistake, but you may be the first man on the planet who was "disappointed" that Saddam Hussein never got around to that whole nuclear capability thing.
We don't mean to beat up on the guy, or to act surprised at his 9,466th bungled quote. So we'd like to be productive about this and help our president understand the difference between a mistake, and a disappointment. We put together this handy chart below for the next time Bush decides to take a look back:
-- Bob Power
