Press Conference by the President (11/08/2006):
"Q Thank you, Mr. President. Last week you told us that Secretary Rumsfeld will be staying on. Why is the timing right now for this, and how much does it have to do with the election results?

THE PRESIDENT: Right. No, you and Hunt and Keil came in the Oval Office, and Hunt asked me the question one week before the campaign, and basically it was, are you going to do something about Rumsfeld and the Vice President? And my answer was, they're going to stay on. And the reason why is I didn't want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign. And so the only way to answer that question and to get you on to another question was to give you that answer."

Interesting. He didn't want to "inject a major decision about this war" during an election campaign. Then he goes on to say well it was because he hadn't yet met with Gates about becoming the nominee, then he says well Gates was going to be the nominee regardless of the election results so it didn't matter. Well if it didn't matter, why not just do it before the election? In other words, why did you lie to us again, Mr. President? What else are you lying about? Why do you find it so difficult to level with the American people, your employers? Bill Clinton was, and rightly so, hounded mercilessly by the press for his lying. Yet Bush gets a free pass. Interesting.