Bush: Iraq War Critics ‘Propagandize,’ Engage In ‘Illogical Behavior’

Think Progress
Oct. 17, 2006

Yesterday Fox News host Bill O’Reilly asked President Bush whether the “anti-Bush press” is responsible for the American public turning against the war in Iraq. Bush agreed with O’Reilly, stating that he’s “disappointed that people would propagandize to that effect because the stakes are too high for that kind of illogical behavior.” Watch it:

Sixty-four percent of the American public now disapproves of Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq. These people are not “illogical” or victims of a propaganda campaign, but are responding to the facts.

Full transcript below:

O’REILLY: Is one of the reasons they’ve turned against the war in Iraq is that the anti-Bush press pounds day in and day out in newspapers, on the network news, in books like Bob Woodward’s, that you don’t know what you’re doing there. You have no have a strategy. You don’t listen to dissent. You’ve got this thing in your mind and you’re stubborn and you just can’t win it.

BUSH: Well, I’m disappointed that people would propagandize to that effect because the stakes are too high for that kind of illogical behavior. We have got a plan — first of all a stated goal.