Full Court Press

The President just had his first press conference in a long while, with Prime Minister Allawi at his side. It didn't help him. The press was relentless, and Bush looked completely out of touch.

An NBC reporter asked more than once "Do you understand why Americans don't believe you when you say Iraq is doing well?" Bush's answer was basically "No." It was hilarious.

John King of CNN asked why Bush said the recent NIE was "just guessing" about the situation on the ground in Iraq. Bush just admitted that he used "an unfortunate word" when he said guessing.

CBS News called him on saying that "just a handful" of insurgrents want to kill people in Iraq.

The press has found its backbone.

Update [2004-9-23 12:48:35 by dday]: Terry Moran just asked "You are speaking for the Iraqi people, but polls show that they are dissatisfied with the occupation. How can you speak for these people?" Bush just inexplicably admitted that the right track/wrong track numbers in Iraq are BETTER than in America. This one is unbelievable. I think you'll be hearing about it until November 2.

Update [2004-9-23 12:53:46 by dday]: He also repeated the lie that 10 million Afghans are registered to vote (when there are only 9.8 eligible Afghan voters).

Then, "I hoped we could resolve it (Iraq) diplomatically." -gwb

This would be fun if it wasn't so sad.

Now he's peddling the talking point about how the terrorists want to affect the elections.

Update [2004-9-23 13:2:14 by dday]: Rahm Emanuel is hammering the presser. "If you don't think you have a problem, then you won't be able to come up with a situation. Doing the same thing and expecting different results means you do not have a handle on what is going on in Iraq." Ileana Ross-Lehtinen is toeing the party line: "Can't send a mixed signal... stay the course... support the troops..."