President Bush held a press conference today. Most of the time he defended his policy of an endless war but then he said something completely astonishing.

I was hoping to solve the Iraqi issue diplomatically

Really? Does anyone believe that? Bush wanted diplomacy to work? That's why the UN weapons inspectors who were in Iraq had to leave because Bush announced he was about to invade. Bush and Blair invaded. And what did they gain? Two years later Bush made a video of himself pretending to look for the weapons of destruction around his office. Looking under his desk and joking about it. While Americans died on his order.

Was he hoping to solve it diplomatically or was the image of the mushroom clouds over American cities designed to frighten the Congress and public into compliance with a plan to invade? Would Bush have been happy if there was a diplomatic solution? What would that have looked like? Would Saddam Hussein have allowed UN inspectors in? Would they be allowed to go where they wanted? Do we remember that was the situation when they got pulled from the country for their own safety?

Bob Gates. This is Bush's choice for Secretary of Defense. He's presently the president of Texas A&M University. That may sound like a strange warm-up job. Sure, there's more. He led the CIA and all that. But really, addressing fraternity hazing, hanging out at football games, lining up alumni donations, these may be the skills that serve him best.

From the bumbling Bush news conference we learn that Mr. Gates has been the replacement choice for a while. Or, maybe not. Actually, can anybody figure out what the hell Bush is saying? Amazing to hear him insist that Republicans were going to win the elections.

More on Gates. His name might ring a bell from the Iran-Contra hearings. Also, the president's people are letting it be known that he overruled Dick Cheney in selecting Gates.

As we all know from Aesop's fable, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, once your credibility is damaged, it's very hard to convince people to trust you again. Such is the conundrum facing our President in regards to the claim that Iran is supplying potent munitions to the Iraq insurgency. Yes, there was a time long, long ago, when the specter of terrorism was enough to unite the country and the Congress behind George Bush. But no longer. That's what happens when you cook the books.

The regrettable outcome of such behavior brings to mind another classic literary line, delivered to the nation some years back in an off-the-cuff oratory:

"There's an old saying in Tennessee-I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee-that says, fool me once, shame on... shame on you. Fool me... You can't get fooled again."

That throwaway Bushism might not be so noteworthy, except for the fact that it was part of a speech Mr. Bush delivered to a magnet school in Nashville, Tennessee, on September 17, 2002. Titled "Remarks by the President on Teaching American History and Civic Education," the president's remarks did indeed touch on the importance of emphasizing the subject of History in our nation's schools. But by and large, the speech had another purpose. To continue to build the case for war against Iraq.

This chestnut comes to us from AP:

President Bush said Tuesday an al-Qaida plot to stoke sectarian violence is to blame for escalating bloodshed, and refused to debate whether the country has fallen into civil war.

It seems that Bush is back in the bubble again, or did he ever really leave it? Of course, the rest of the country knows a civil war when they see one. Sure, al-Qaida is doing everything in its power to foment chaos, no one ever doubted this. But the point is that it works in Iraq. Each attack incites a subsequent mass killing. To deny the level of sectarian hatred is foolish. To keep firing out the same worn-out platitudes about democracy and success is beyond wishful thinking. More Bush:

"The Maliki government is going to have to deal with that violence and we want to help them do so. It's in our interest that we succeed."

The man who got us into this mess still doesn't have a clue. Pointing to Al-Qaida so as to cover up our own mistakes rings more hollow every day.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will travel to meet with a man who most likely has been doing everything in his power to harm U.S. forces in Iraq:

ABC News' Jonathan Karl Reports: ABC News has learned Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi plans to visit Syria next week to meet with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. The visit will make Pelosi the most senior U.S. official ever to meet with President Assad.

Pelosi will be traveling to Syria has part of Congressional delegation. On the trip, she also plans to visit several other countries in the region, including Israel, where she will deliver a speech to the Knesset.

Yes, you read that right, the most senior U.S. official. Ever.

Pelosi, as Senator John Kerry did before her, is looking to undermine Bush administration policy by meeting with a man who in the last year has done nothing to stop insurgent elements from hiding within his country and attacking our troops in Iraq. Boy Assad also has fought Israel by proxy by supporting Hezbollah and is allegedly complicit in the death of senior Lebanese leaders.

There is a fascinating column today in the Dallas Morning News by Georgie Anne Geyer entitled, "A Spreading Terror." The gist of the column is that we are supposed to be "containing terrorism" in Iraq, but we are clearly exporting insurgents to other regions,i.e. Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, Bangladesh, Kurdistan. The Fatah al-Islam terrorists in Lebanon were recent transplants who showed up one day with new weapons, ready to fight. I guess that would be the blowback from our policies in Iraq.

Of some interest with respect to our president's state of mind:

By all reports, President Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness. Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated, "I am the president!" He also made it clear that he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of "our country's destiny."

Apparently, those "friends" were concerned enough to leak the details of that conversation. We should all be concerned.

It used to be that the next step for a general was a presidential run. The most famous examples, arguably, are Civil War commander Ulysses S. Grant and World War II leader Dwight D. Eisenhower.

More recently, though, military alumni have had less success in presidential campaigns. Colin Powell decided against it in 1995, while Wesley Clark's campaign couldn't overcome Sen. John Kerry in 2004. More successful veteran candidates, such as Kerry and Sen. John McCain, still haven't achieved the goal that came so easily to Grant and Ike.

This may show that Americans are as good at compartmentalizing as our politicians. We can admire a Kerry or a McCain for their military heroism, but this doesn't mean we automatically vote for them. Our most recent former president, Bill Clinton, and our current commander-in-chief, George W. Bush, are far from military heroes, and yet they got elected anyway. Perhaps that is an encouraging sign for a country often accused of being too pro-military.

On October 20, Professor Marjorie Cohn became president of the National Lawyers Guild. In an interview with me Sunday, the new president of the NLG identified several instances in which she says President Bush has violated U.S. and international law. Here they are:

1) Bush illegally invaded a sovereign nation under false pretenses and then put laws in place to immunize himself and his high officials from war crimes prosecutions. Even before Bush removed his hand from the Bible Laura held as Chief Justice William Rehnquist swore him in as President, Bush was planning to attack Iraq and change its regime.

2) Bush ignored warnings of the 9/11 attacks, then used that tragedy as an excuse to invade Iraq and push laws through a shell-shocked Congress too timid to stand up for our Constitution.

President Bush is facing a hostile Congress over the Iraq war. Will his presidency end in humiliation?

Talk of war with Iran seems to have faded, and Bush's critics seem doubtful that the U.S. military can solve the current situation in Iraq. As Thomas Paine once said regarding another George, "These are the times that try men's souls," particularly men with a "Dubya" in their names (Walker and Washington).

So how is Bush going to prevent himself from becoming the most unpopular ex-president in recent memory? At this point, he can (a) emulate John Murtha and pull our troops out, (b) keep defying Democrats and hope the surge works after all, or (c) increase the military presence, furthering the strain on our resources elsewhere.

The choice is Bush's to make. How well can he defend his legacy?

Do President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney deserve impeachment? Is their direction of the Iraq war mere bungling, or something more sinister, and does it warrant action by Congress? Susannah and Bob discuss in the latest episode of "Running Gags"!

Dan Bartlett -- part of the original Texas gang, one of the two remaining palace guards, counselor and adviser to President Bush for some 13 years -- is leaving the White House. That leaves Karl Rove as the last man standing around the president.

Bartlett was a master at framing issues and controlling communications between the White House and the outside world. He was considered one of the few people who could actually speak candidly with the president, although there is some question about how much was reality and how much was what Bush wanted to hear. So how come Bartlett goes now? Couldn't he have stuck with the president for one more year -- a pivotal time in the Bush presidency? He is leaving for the private sector, but doesn't have a job lined up.

Can Rove alone save Bush's presidency (and legacy) and the Republican party?

Is President Bush crazy? If that question was coming from a liberal, it would be no big deal. But the question is being raised by a conservative newspaper magnate.

Richard Mellon Scaife called the Bush administration's plan to "stay the course" in Iraq as a "prescription for American suicide." The editorial in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review indicated that what bothered them a lot was Bush's comment that "sometimes the decisions you make and the consequences don't enable you to be loved."

Then the editorial went on to question not only what the president has been threatening if there is a pull out but what every conservative blogger has been warning about. The editorial stated: "President Bush warns that U.S. withdrawal would risk 'mass killings on a horrific scale.' What do we have today, sir?"

Finally, those on the other side of the political aisle are beginning to see the dangers of America's continued involvement in Iraq.

In 2004, President Bush carried around a security blanket, much like Linus in the Peanuts cartoons. In Bush's case, of course, I'm talking about the "security blanket" of the Justice Department (run by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft) and the Department of Homeland Security (run by then-Secretary Tom Ridge). All those Red, or Orange, or Chartreuse Alerts helped convince many Americans of how insecure our nation was in the wake of 9/11, and how much they needed Bush and his buddies to keep us safe.

Now the Democrats are taking away Bush's blanket. On Monday, Ashcroft's successor, Alberto Gonzales, resigned as attorney general. The Congress and the country are not so willing to go along with the president's policy anymore, and Gonzales' resignation shows this.

But can Democrats take a larger message from this? Can the 2008 hopefuls charge that the Bush Administration got too security-crazed and that we can abandon the wiretapping, the USA PATRIOT Act, Gitmo? A campaign ad for Sen. Barack Obama portrayed Obama's rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, as hoping for a 1984-style state ... but will anyone call out the Bush administration for its 1984 tendencies, and say that they will never do the same?

I can't imagine the shock of the soldiers at Al Asad Airbase this morning when Air Force One touched down. That must have been quite a sight. President Bush has made (obviously surprise) visits to Iraq before, but this time the visit is not to Baghdad, but to the Anbar province west of Baghdad.

The White House said the base was chosen because of the "remarkable turnaround" in the mostly Sunni region west of Baghdad.

Bush plans to eat dinner with U.S. troops and to meet with top military commanders, the U.S. ambassador, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and provincial tribal leaders.

Bush has hailed Anbar as a success, citing the U.S. military's alliance with tribal leaders in fighting al Qaeda in Iraq.

The other interesting part of the story is the way they smuggled the president out:

In his interview with President Bush broadcast on Sunday's ABC This Week Bush asserted to George Stephanopoulos that his administration has "never been stay the course" in Iraq. From the transcript:

STEPHANOPOULOS: James Baker says that he's looking for something between "cut and run" and "stay the course."

BUSH: Well, hey, listen, we've never been "stay the course," George. We have been - we will complete the mission, we will do our job, and help achieve the goal, but we're constantly adjusting to tactics. Constantly.