The flawed logic of Bush's Veteran's Day defense

I just wanted to make note of this paragraph in Bush's speech yesterday.

While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. (Applause.) Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs.

Look at the construction of this, it is rhetorically brilliant. He frames the accusation "we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people," and then offers as defense for that, the Silverman Robb committee's finding that, "found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments."

Look at the structure of this, "I'm accused of lying, but even my critics know that I've been proven innocent of intimidation." This is not a logicially sound defense.

Buried deep within the speech, passed over rather quickly, with no one able to question the "slipperyness" of it. Pretty good, pretty smart.

Update: The WaPo A01 analysis piece this morning examines this rhetorically strong, but logically weak, point, as well as a few others, in a more oblique way.

President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence.

Neither assertion is wholly accurate.

Update: Just a little Headline vs. Headline. Same event, take your pick.

AP: Bush Forcefully Attacks Iraq Critics

vs.

AFP: Embattled Bush defends case for Iraq war



Also, this is pretty funny from sadlyno showing how much of that speech was cobbled together from other speeches.