More On the NIE

This from Jimmie:

There are quite a few folks who would have us believe that the President is just hell-bent on taking us to war with Iran, which is utter and complete nonsense. In order to hold that as true, you’d have to believe that George Bush is quite simply an inhuman monster who wants to engage in a hot war for no good reason at all.

After nearly seven years it would be hard to not to think that Bush/Cheney are indeed "just hell-bent on taking us to war with Iran" - it;s not "utter and complete nonsense" but a pattern.

At a press conference this morning George W. Bush made it clear that he is
a) A serial liar
b) Totally out of touch
c) All of the above

At a press briefing this morning, President Bush said he was told by his Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell “in August” that “we have some new information” regarding Iran’s nuclear program. But Bush asserted “he didn’t tell me what the information was”:

BUSH: I was made aware of the NIE last week. In August, I think it was John — Mike McConnell came in and said, We have some new information. He didn’t tell me what the information was. He did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze.

Later, when a reporter followed-up on this statement, Bush asserted no one ever told him to stop ratcheting up the rhetoric against Iran:

REPORTER: Are you saying at no point while the rhetoric was escalating, as World War III was making it into conversation — at no point, nobody from your intelligence team or your administration was saying, Maybe you want to back it down a little bit?

BUSH: No — I’ve never — nobody ever told me that.

Update
Biden leaves out c) All of the above.
Biden: Bush either not truthful or incompetent on Iran

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Joseph Biden (Del.) Tuesday asserted that President Bush is not leveling with the country when he says that he did not know in mid-October that U.S. intelligence services believed at that time that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

“Are you telling me a president who is briefed every single morning, who is fixated on Iran, is not told back in August that the tentative conclusion of 16 intelligence agencies in the United States government said they had abandoned their effort for a nuclear weapon in ’03?” Biden said in a conference call with reporters.

“That’s not believable,” Biden added. “I refuse to believe that. If that’s true, he has the most incompetent staff in … modern American history and he’s one of the most incompetent presidents in modern American history.”

Bush told reporters earlier Tuesday that he was made aware only last week of a National Intelligence Estimate that described the stop to the Iranian nuclear program.

“I love presidents who parse words,” Biden said in response. “The NIE didn’t get written until a week ago.”

And Josh agrees