It's the carefully chosen language, Stupid.
By Brad Friedman on 9/26/2004, 2:03pm PT  

In the buildup to War on Iraq, when the idea was very unpopular amongst Americans just prior to the 2002 Elections, Bush and his surrogates went out of their way to tell the American people that he had no plans for war on his desk...

"I told the Chancellor that I have no war plans on my desk, which is the truth." - May 23, 2002 to German Chancellor Schroeder

"I told the Prime Minister there are no war plans on my desk." - June 23, 2002 to Australian Prime Minister Howard

"I told President Chirac, I have no war plans on my desk." - May 26, 2002 to French President Chirac

As we later learned, of course, plans for War on Iraq were being readied at the time by the Pentagon even if they weren't yet "on Bush's desk".

This morning, on ABC's This Week Colin Powell made a careful mid-sentence correction when answering a question about whether there are plans for re-instating the Draft in the U.S.:

POWELL: There are no plans for a draft...uuuh...at least President Bush has no plans for a draft.

In other words, Bush "has no plans for a Draft on his desk."

We report, you decide.

(Fool me twice, shame on me?)

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