W's Retraction

"My Fellow Americans, In the past few days, the White House asked for and got an apology and retraction from Newsweek for reporting that our military had defamed the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, a falsehood that has damaged our reputation and led to 17 deaths in the Arab world. But in the spirit of consistency and in a personality transformation as radical as when I kicked the habit at 40 -- not to mention the petition I received yesterday from MoveOn signed by 3.6 billion people world-wide -- I am today apologizing for the falsehoods that led to an invasion of Iraq that has led not to 17 but approximately 1600 American deaths, over 10,000 wounded, 100,000+ Iraqi deaths and to the collapse of esteem worldwide just when we needed help in responding to the terrorist threat that I exploited for reelection.

"Consequently, I am retracting a) the Medal of Freedom that I awarded George Tenet for misinforming me about WMD in Iraq, b)Secretary Rice's appointment as Secretary of State for failing to accurately interpret the plain English of the August 6, 2001 PDB warning that bin Laden would attack New York using airplanes, c) Wolfowitz's World Bank appointment for his prediction that Iraqi oil revenues would adequately fund its reconstruction and d) my policy of not promising an exit. The U.S. will be leaving Iraq early next year once there's a government and constitution in place. Is this cutting-and-running? If $300 billion doesn't prove to the world that I'm tough, what would?

"To all those critics at Air America and The Nation who say that I never admit a mistake or alter a policy, I now pledge never to appoint "Curveball" to be U.N. Ambassador or a Circuit Court judge.

"Thank you. And God Bless America."