FINALLY! The Bush Administration launched a major media counter-offensive today to dispel the fallacious (and downright dangerous) charges of Senate Democrats that the White House lied about pre-Iraq War intelligence. The President gave a brilliant speech in PA where he indicated a shift back to his administration’s 2004 campaign rhetoric in defense of the war. This strategy worked before, and it will work again. I’m counting on a nice bump for President Bush in the months ahead.

This was the best part of his address. It is taken directly from the President’s 2004 campaign stump speech. Mike Gerson really knows his stuff:

“While it’s perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began . . . Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war,” Bush said. “They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein . . . These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America’s will.”

The President finally called his critics by name - the Democrats. It’s about time. The fight is on now!