Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

Big blue announed they were adding 15,000 new jobs this year, but they cut 400 jobs in the US in January. hmmm....... General Motors lost money last year. Think they'll be adding more jobs? They also lost market share by over 15 percent. hmmm.......

This is a demonstrably false and malicious charge that would be slanderous under any ordinary circumstance ... Terry McAuliffe has become the John Wilkes Booth of character assassination.

It is really shameful that this was brought up four years ago, and it's shameful that some are trying to bring it up again. I think it is sad to see some stoop to this level, especially so early in an election year.

I think he's run the country into the ground economically, and he comes out with these crazy ideas like going to Mars and going to the moon," said Richard Bidlack, a 78-year-old retiree from Boonton, N.J., who says he voted for Bush in 2000. "I'm so upset at Bush, I'll vote for a chimpanzee before I vote for him.

RUSSERT: Let me turn to Iraq. And this is the whole idea of what you based your decision to go to war on.

BUSH: Sure, sure.

RUSSERT: The night you took the country to war, March 17th, you said this: Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.

BUSH: Right.

RUSSERT: That, apparently, is not the case.

BUSH: Correct.

"But David Kay did report to the American people that Saddam had the capacity to make weapons. Saddam Hussein was dangerous with weapons. Saddam Hussein was dangerous with the ability to make weapons. He was a dangerous man in a dangerous part of the world."

"The U.N. Security Council said 'we're unanimous, and you're danger.'(Is this really what he said, or is the word 'in' missing from the transcript?--PD) So, it wasn't just me and the United States. The world thought he was dangerous and needed to be disarmed. And, of course, he defied the world once again."

"I went to Congress with the same intelligence -- the Congress saw the same intelligence I had, and they looked at exactly what I looked at. And they made an informed judgment, based upon the information that I had."

"...the same information, by the way, that my predecessor had. And all of us, you know, made this judgment that Saddam Hussein needed to be removed."

Bush Defends War in Rare TV Interview
By DEB RIECHMANN

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush denied he marched America into war under false pretenses and said the U.S.-led invasion was necessary because Saddam Hussein could have developed a nuclear weapon.

``I don't think America can stand by and hope for the best,'' the president said. Bush suggested Saddam may have destroyed or spirited out of the country the banned weapons the Bush administration cited as a main rationale for the war.

``I expected to find the weapons,'' Bush said in an Oval Office interview broadcast Sunday on NBC's ``Meet the Press.''

``Sitting behind this desk, making a very difficult decision of war and peace, I based my decision on the best intelligence possible,'' the president said. The interview was taped Saturday.

Bush also was asked about the fugitive Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks whom the president had pledged to get ``dead or alive.''

``I have no idea whether we will capture or bring him to justice,'' Bush said.

The interview, his first on a Sunday talk show since taking office, came as the president's approval rating has dipped to 47 percent, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll taken in early February; that compares with 56 percent just a month ago.

The appearance followed weeks of criticism from Democrats over the failure so far to find Iraq's cache of weapons.

``They could have been destroyed during the war,'' Bush said, speculating about reasons the reports might have been wrong. ``Saddam and his henchmen could have destroyed them as we entered into Iraq. They could be hidden. They could have been transported to another country, and we'll find out.''

The president said he retained confidence in CIA Director George Tenet. Bush shook his head from side to side when asked if Tenet's job was in jeopardy. ``No, not at all, not at all,'' Bush said.

Bush pledged to cooperate with a commission he set up last week to examine prewar intelligence lapses and defended its March 2005 reporting date, which is four months after the White House election.

``There is going to be ample time for the American people to assess ... whether or not I made the right decision in removing Saddam Hussein from power,'' Bush said.

Democrats in Congress and on the campaign trail said Sunday they wanted to see the findings before the election, if possible.

``What we've got here is a president who simply doesn't want to be held accountable,'' presidential hopeful Wesley Clark told CNN's ``Late Edition.''

Bush did not directly respond to election-year allegations that his administration exaggerated intelligence, but made clear that the United States considered the Iraqi president a dictator who brutalized and killed his own people.

``I strongly believe that inaction in Iraq would have emboldened Saddam Hussein,'' Bush said. ``He could have developed a nuclear weapon over time - I'm not saying immediately, but over time.

We would have been in a position of blackmail. In other words, you can't rely upon a madman.''

Also on the foreign policy front, Bush said ``diplomacy is just beginning'' with North Korea. The United States and its allies are seeking to persuade the communist nation to abandon its nuclear weapons programs. ``We are making good progress,'' Bush said.

On domestic issues, Bush said his tax cuts were responsible for an economic rebound.

He dismissed news reports that there is no evidence he reported for National Guard duty in Alabama during the summer and fall of 1972, during the Vietnam War. ``There may be no evidence but I did report; otherwise, I wouldn't have been honorably discharged.''

Bush expressed indifference about polls that showed him trailing the Democratic front-runner, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. ``I'm not going to lose,'' Bush said. ``I don't plan on losing.''