Must-calls and Memes

More from last night's "media availability" by the president:

Q. Mr. President, Why are you and the vice president insisting on appearing together before the 9/11 commission? And Mr. President, who will you be handing the Iraqi government over to on June 30?

A. We'll find that out soon. That's what Mr. Brahimi is doing. He's figuring out the nature of the entity we'll be handing sovereignty over. And secondly, because the the 9/11 commission wants to ask us questions. That's why we're meeting, and I look forward to meeting with them and answering their questions.

Q. Mr. President, I was asking why you're appearing together rather than separately, which was their request.

A. Because it's a good chance for both of us to answer questions that the 9/11 commission is looking forward to asking us, and I'm looking forward to answering them.

Let's see. Hold on for a minute. Oh — I've got some must calls, I'm sorry.

Q. You have been accused of letting the 9/11 threat mature too far, but not letting the Iraq threat mature far enough. First, could you respond to that general criticism? And secondly, in the wake of these two conflicts, what is the appropriate threat level to justify action in, perhaps, other situations going forward?

A. Yeah. I guess there have been some that said, well, we should have taken pre-emptive action in Afghanistan, and then turned around and said we shouldn't have taken pre-emptive action in Iraq. And my answer to that question is that — again, I repeat what I said earlier — prior to 9/11, the country really wasn't on a war footing. And the, frankly, mood of the world would have been astounded had the United States acted unilaterally in trying to deal with Al Qaeda in that part of the world. It would have been awfully hard to do, as well, by the way. We would have had — we hadn't got our relationship right with Pakistan yet. The caucus area would have been very difficult from which to base. It just seemed an impractical strategy at the time. And frankly, I didn't contemplate it. I did contemplate a larger strategy as to how to deal with Al Qaeda. We — you know, we were shooting cruise missiles and with little effect. And I said, if we're going to go after Al Qaeda, let's have a comprehensive strategy as to how to deal with it, with that entity.

Now, today it's been widely discussed that this second questioner was Washington Times/FOX "reporter" Bill Sammon. Later on that evening on CNN's Larry King Live, Mitch McConnell chimed in:

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), KY, MAJORITY WHIP: Well, I think he laid out a good case, Larry, for doing what we've done since 9/11, which is to try to drain the swamp. I mean the president is being criticized by some for not acting soon enough prior to 9/11 and then for acting too soon in Iraq.

You see what's going on here, don't you? As always, the GOP and their reps in congress and the media (Sean Hannity was on the Today Show this morning with more of the same) will pepper the airwaves with this meme; that we had to go in to Iraq, when and how we did and not a moment later, because we waited too long to go in to Afghanistan to take out the Taliban and al Qaeda. The same technique sees many mentions (almost verbatim) of how the 9/11 commission is already showing it's partisan stripes, and therefore whatever the report, it will be tainted. Truth never enters into the equation for this team. So, anyway, we will see this meme pop up again and again in the days to follow. It must; the talking points memo was distributed to everyone, including Sammon and McConnell, Hannity and Limbaugh. Watch.