The reason Bush’s handlers kept him out of town hall forums during the election is because he his horrible at speaking extemporaneously — and because he is prone to slip up and blurt out the truth. As Keith Olbermann pointed out on Countdown last night, the president did just that yesterday in a Q&A session with regular folks when he said:

“I was very careful never to say that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks on America.”

Really, sir? And why was that? Did someone coach you to be careful not to make the connection? Wonder who? Wonder why?

And how did it come to be that vast majorities of your supporters (who also happened to be Fox News viewers) came to believe that Saddam had ordered the 9/11 attacks?

Mr. Bush also — ho-hum — told a big fat lie during the same exchange. Here his full answer to a question about the bogus justifications he used to get us into the war in Iraq:

First, just if I might correct a misperception. I don’t think we ever said — at least I know I didn’t say that there was a direct connection between September the 11th and Saddam Hussein. We did say that he was a state sponsor of terror — by the way, not declared a state sponsor of terror by me, but declared by other administrations. We also did say that Zarqawi, the man who is now wreaking havoc and killing innocent life, was in Iraq. And so the state sponsor of terror was a declaration by a previous administration. But I don’t want to be argumentative, but I was very careful never to say that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks on America.

Here is Mr. Bush speaking in his State of the Union speech in 2003, during the White House marketing campaign for the war:

Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.

Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans — this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known.

Crooks & Liars has the video from Countdown.

Update: Had a note from the editor of BuzzFlash pointing out their take on this story today. Read their editorial here, but I especially found the information about “mirroring” to be very interesting:

In the run-up to the Iraq War, Bush primarily used a linguistic technique called “mirroring.” He would say things like, “We must fight back and defeat the terrorists who planned and financed 9/11, that is why Saddam must be removed from power.” In such a sentence, the speaker can technically say he did not specifically claim Saddam was responsible for 9/11, but the human mind, upon hearing the sentence, believes that’s exactly what the speaker said.

The White House carefully designed Bush’s endless use of “mirroring” language on 9/11 and Saddam, so that Bush could have a meaningless “technical” out in case the Iraq War failed — which would be an understatement.

BuzzFlash also has a list via the DNC of some of the more blatant statements the president and his team made in which they connected the imaginary dots between Saddam and Al Qaeda and 9/11. Check it out here.