That's It?

This is all Bush and Blair could muster to answer questions about the Downing Street Memo, the British memo that alleges that the British government knew that Bush was deliberately lying to the American people. The best they could do from this:

"The so-called Downing Street memo from July 2002 says intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy of removing Saddam through military action," Holland mused to both leaders. "Is this an accurate reflection of what happened?"

is this:

"Well, I can respond to that very easily," he said, before Bush could open his mouth. "No, the facts were not being fixed, in any shape or form at all."
Bush started out by suggesting that the memo wasn't credible because British media had "dropped it out in the middle of his [Blair's] race." Skipping any discussion of the intelligence, Bush said he had not settled on war from the start. "There's nothing farther from the truth," he asserted. "My conversations with the prime minister was, how can we do this peacefully?"

I deliberately didn't blog on the Downing Street Memo because I wanted to have some sort of better commentary first that explained it, but Bush and Blair dropped the ball on this one. For me, this confirms the validity of the memo.

Memo: Bush manipulated Iraq intel

Seldom-Discussed Elephant Moves Into Public's View