Yet three months later that same reference, the reference that the Whitehouse announced was no longer operative on July 7th, was inserted into the State of the Union. The rationale, wholly transparent, was that the statement was factually correct when it claimed that a British Government report made the claim. As Director Tenet said yesterday when he picked up the buck passed to him by the President and Ms. Rice, the bar for inclusion in a Presidential address should be higher than that. Clintonian factually accurate but misleading distortions have no place in our most basic political institutions. More importantly the bar for Presidential performance of his duties is set higher than that.

George Walker Bush is not some clerk in the executive department. He is not on-screen talent hired to read a script for a national television audience. He is President of the United States and the State of the Union message is his constitutionally mandated annual report to the Congress and the nation. It is his constitutional responsibility to make that report and he is personally responsible for its content.

Ms. Rice’s deputy knew that the intelligence was flawed in October. It is inconceivable that the deputy never told the National Security Advisor – even as she was making the smoking gun – mushroom cloud tour of the talk shows. It is equally inconceivable that Ms. Rice never advised the President why the Niger uranium story was deleted from the October 7th speech in which the smoking gun – mushroom cloud reference was coined. That the President did not know in October is simply not credible.

The logical conclusion is inescapable. It was George Walker Bush with whom the CIA representatives concurred that the British report said it was a factually accurate statement. It was George Walker Bush who insisted that it be included in his report to the nation and that it was George Walker Bush who should now, pick up the buck.