He fully believes

Ken Herman asked a good question at the White House press conference (unscheduled, by the way, and called in a hurry) - and more importantly, he asked the followup (emphasis mine):

Herman: "A lot of the consequences you mentioned for pulling out seem like maybe they never would have been there if we hadn't gone in. How do you square all of that?"

Bush: "I square it because imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein, who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who had relations with Zarqawi. Imagine what the world would be like with him in power. The idea is to try to help change the Middle East. . . . You know, I've heard this theory about, you know, everything was just fine until we arrived and -- you know, the stir-up-the-hornet's- nest theory. It just doesn't hold water, as far as I'm concerned. The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East. They were. . . . "

Herman: "What did Iraq have to do with that?"

Bush: "What did Iraq have to do with what?"

Herman: "The attacks upon the World Trade Center?"

Bush: "Nothing. Except for it's part of -- and nobody's ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a -- Iraq -- the lesson of September the 11th is: Take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. . . . I fully believe it was the right decision to remove Saddam Hussein, and I fully believe the world is better off without him."

Wow. A flat-out admission that Iraq had nothing to do with the September 11th attacks. Nothing. Ignore for the moment the immediate disingenuous (at best) aside about 'ordering' the attack, and realize that Bush has just admitted that Iraq had nothing to do with it.

Nothing.

I'm not at all sure that I can find the words...

Fortunately, Fred Kaplan over at Slate does: What a moronic presidential press conference!