TRIFECTA UPDATE: Reader Lucy Stone says it really matters:

Hi Instapundit. You mention that the “trifecta” issue just won’t go away. And you know, it shouldn’t. Here’s why: it’s so Clintonian, so average slimy politician of Bush. If you bill yourself as a straight shooter and not your average politician, than be a straight shooter otherwise you have no credibility. The “I hit the trifecta” remark –aside from being in terribly bad taste in my opinion– is so obviously CYA and disingenuous. Why can’t Bush just say, look, circumstances have changed and therefore my criteria have changed. Americans have shown they will give him the benefit of the doubt when they believe he’s being straight. The continued trifecta remark, which he makes surely because he thinks it’s witty, is shamelessly political and in context of the 9/11 deaths, again, in terribly bad taste. (I can’t believe people actually laugh at this remark.) Sometimes he says things in jest that completely take me aback, because they seem to be his most honest moments. And I’m not sure I like what I see in those moments –things would be so much easier if I were a dictator being one of the more disturbing comments he’s made.

Bush has said he’s different from other politicians and every time he acts like just another politician he breaks faith, and in the end that will seriously injure his chances at re-election, because once he’s seen as just another politician he looses his strongest selling point.

I agree with all of this. Especially under the current circumstances, it’s enormously important that Bush — and his whole administration — be exceptionally honest and trustworthy. (In fact, that’s my FoxNews column topic). I think the “trifecta” thing has had so little resonance with me because (as I’ve mentioned before) I sure thought I remembered Bush saying that. Apparently I’m wrong, though.