Where have I Heard that Before?

Bush is trying to link Kerry with Howard Dean:

For his part, from his first stop this morning on a football field in Lee's Summit to a late-afternoon rally at a fairgrounds here, Mr. Bush ridiculed Mr. Kerry for his saying on Monday that Iraq was "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"He woke up yesterday morning with yet another new position," Mr. Bush told more than 10,000 people gathered for a breakfast-hour rally. "And this one is not even his own. It is that of his one-time rival, Howard Dean.

"He even used the same words Howard Dean did, back when he supposedly disagreed with him. No matter how many times Senator Kerry flip-flops, we were right to make America safer by removing Saddam Hussein from power."

Well, a lot of people may have said it-- cause it's true. But Dean's most famous comment was this:

Dean said in Monday’s speech to the Pacific Council in Los Angeles that Bush had “launched the wrong war, at the wrong time, with inadequate planning, insufficient help and at extraordinary cost.

Granted, that's close-- but not as close as these guys:

General Zinni

Gen. Zinni: Heads Should Roll

By SAM HAMOD

In a slashing criticism of the Bush White House and Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon leadership, General Zinni, former Commander of Central Command of U.S. Military, and Special Envoy to the Middle East in the Bush Administration until he resigned in disgust, said "Heads should roll at the Pentagon--Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith and those who foisted the Iraq war on the U.S. despite my objectioins and those of most U.S. Generals including, Schwartkopf, Skowcroft, Clark, Shinseki and others."

Speaking on 60 MINUTES,May 23, Zinni said, "The plan was wrong, it was the wrong war, the wrong place and the wrong time--with little or no planning." He stated that there were serious "derelections of duty," "criminal negligence," and poor planning that put U.S. forces in harm's way and left Iraq in chaos after the invasion. Further, he added that the Pentagon's man on the ground, Paul Bremer, had made "mistake after mistake after mistake."

Arthur Schlesinger

The immediate reason that Mr Bush opened Pandora's box in the Middle East and invaded Iraq was his moral certitude that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that he was working in close partnership with Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida. Those convictions turned out to be delusions. This denouement does great harm to Mr Bush's credibility and to that of the United States; it has got us into a ghastly mess in Iraq; and it has diverted attention, resources and military might from the war that should have commanded the Bush administration's highest priority - the Afghan war against al-Qa'ida and international terrorism. Meanwhile Afghanistan is a mess too. Mr Bush chose the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Does it really matter who said it first? The real question is, is it correct? I prefer Kerry's company on this one. Kerry should point out that he's quoting Zinni and read the quote in his stump speech.