RE-REVISIONIST HISTORY

As others have pointed out, Bush's "revisionist historians" comment has to be among the most ironic things ever said. The best thing about it is that it gives news correspondents quite the softball. It is rare that a moment of irony can be caught in such a cut-and-dry fashion as this (from the Australian):

GEORGE W. Bush, facing growing questions over the failure of the US to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, hit out yesterday at "revisionist historians", whom he claimed wanted to ignore Saddam Hussein's record.

The President's defiance came in the face of strong pressure from Democrats for congressional inquiries into whether intelligence about Iraq's weapons was inadequate or wrong, or twisted by the administration to suit its case for ousting the Iraqi dictator.

"This nation acted to a threat from the dictator of Iraq," Mr Bush insisted yesterday in a speech in New Jersey. "Now, there are some who would like to rewrite history – revisionist historians is what I like to call them.

"Saddam Hussein was a threat to America and the free world in 91, in 98, in 2003. He continually ignored the demands of the free world, so the United States and friends and allies acted."

Mr Bush did not mention weapons of mass destruction – a trend in recent speeches. He recently insisted the US would find "the truth" about the weapons programs, rather than weapons themselves.

A revisionist trend? And more subtly Orwelian, a revisionist aim about the weapons (the "truth about" them, rather than the WMD themselves).