This Guy Is Paid Millions?

I should have been a liberal. I could have been tree stump stupid and still been paid very well for my opinions. I could have been Keith Olbermann -- who as you can see, can't even take a photo without leaning left.

In his current MSNBC column, Olbermann thinks he's nailed Bush in a lie:

... Mr. Bush probably did not know that, with his own words, he had already proved that he had been lying, is lying and will be lying about Iraq.

The big lie alleged by Olberstump is this: When visiting Iraq, Bush "deceived the troops at Al-Asad Air Base yesterday with the tantalizing prospect that some of them might not have to risk being killed and might get to go home."

Why is that a lie? Because:

He presumably did not know that there had already appeared those damning excerpts from Robert Draper's book “Dead Certain."

“I'm playing for October-November," Mr. Bush said to Draper. That, evidently, is the time during which, he thinks he can sell us the real plan, which is “to get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence."

Comfortable, that is, with saying about Iraq, again quoting the President, “stay... longer."

And there it is. We've caught you.

We can be pretty certain, in fact, that the president knew the "damning excerpts" were out. He was in the interview, you know, and he has a staff that keeps him posted on such things with nifty little summaries. It is, in fact, the same staff that drafts and reviews the president's comments, so even if the president didn't know, the words he said would have been properly scrubbed -- if they needed scrubbing.

But the words don't need scrubbing, because there is no lie. As Olberstump said in his own description of the "lie," the president told the troops "some of them" might be able to go home quickly. That is the definition of an orderly withdrawal.

What Olberstump wants is an immediate retreat, white flags flapping in the breeze, a race to the exits, a purging of stabilizing forces in Iraq, so he can then enjoy himself while blaming the ensuing bloodbath on Bush.

The quote that so inflamed Olberstump is Bush's forthright statement that he is "playing for October-November." Of course he is! Everyone, including near the head of the charge, Olberstump, is playing for October-November, from the bogus GAO report to the nightly news.

Everyone, it seems, can play politics except the Chief Politician.

hat-tip: memeorandum