Snowjob back in action

Tony Snow, today:

Wait a minute, Chris. The president has been saying exactly that all along. I don’t know what the headline is. As a matter of fact, I can remember right after September 11 sitting here when I was a journalist and some of your colleagues, I believe Charlie Gibson may have been there at the time as well. The fact is the president made it clear before the State of the Union in 2002 that there was no link between Saddam Hussein and September 11. So Im afraid what’s happened there is that George Tenet may have been referring to something that has been misreported or at least twisted by people with political motives, but there has been no attempt to try to link Saddam to September 11.

George W. Bush, March 18, 2003:

Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)

Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), and based on information available to me, including that in the enclosed document, I determine that:

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Sincerely,

GEORGE W. BUSH

UPDATE: Let's never forget, either, that Condoleezza Rice, with whom Bush shares a frontal lobe, was saying things like this on the very day that Bush sent his final draft of the AUMF to Congress:

"There clearly are contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq that can be documented; there clearly is testimony that some of the contacts have been important contacts and that there's a relationship here," Rice said.

[...]

"We clearly know that there were in the past and have been contacts between senior Iraqi officials and members of al Qaeda going back for actually quite a long time," Rice said. "We know too that several of the (al Qaeda) detainees, in particular some high-ranking detainees, have said that Iraq provided some training to al Qaeda in chemical weapons development."

[...]

"No one is trying to make an argument at this point that Saddam Hussein somehow had operational control of what happened on Sept. 11, so we don't want to push this too far, but this is a story that is unfolding, and it is getting clearer, and we're learning more," Rice said.

Right, no operational control. Saying Saddam had "operational control of what happened on Sept. 11" was pushing it "too far." But they were "clearly" in league with one another. And it was only a matter of time before the evidence proved Saddam was behind 9/11 because it was becoming "clearer" and that's the direction it was going as the story was "unfolding" in front of their careful eyes.