With All Due Respect, Mr. President...

Some quotes from President Bush's press conference today:

“Nobody likes war. It creates a sense of uncertainty in the country.”

“War creates trauma.”

“No president wants war.”

“I didn’t want war. To assume I wanted war is just flat wrong ... with all due respect,” he told a reporter.

But also, consider these quotes from today's press conference:

"We are doing the right thing. A democracy in Iraq is going to affect the neighborhood. A democracy in Iraq is going to (inspire) reformers in a part of the world that is desperate for reformation."

If I had been living on Mars for the last three years, I might assume the following timeline:

1. Bush Administration says Iraq is evading U.N. Democracy Inspectors and is hiding totalitarianism in undisclosed locations.
2. President Bush tells the world that Saddam Hussein has not lived up to his obligations to disclose his totalitarian-ship. He's given no evidence that he's destroyed it.
3. President Bush makes the case to the American people that we must build a democracy in Iraq.
4. We invade Iraq on the premise of building a democracy.

Wait, that's not what happened? We actually cherry-picked intelligence reports? We actually tried to reorganize the Pentagon when reality didn't support our rhetoric? We ignored information from Iraqis in positions to know the truth about weapons of mass destruction? We threw every excuse to go to war on the wall of public opinion just to see what would stick?

With all due respect, Mr. President, you lied then and you are lying now.