SPINSANITY NOTES MORE BOGUS CLAIMS about the White House’s position on whether Saddam posed an “imminent threat.”

Bush administration statements from before the Iraq war continue to be misconstrued by journalists and liberal critics attempting to make it appear that the White House portrayed Iraq as an “imminent” threat.

Yes.

UPDATE: Reader Joseph Hrutka emails:

Its amazing how far the Iraq debate has been shaped by a press that seems unwilling to give any positive spin to the whole project. If I recall correctly, the administration had 3 main reasons for going into Iraq. The WMD angle was put into play because Iraq was not cooperating with UN inspectors and refused to give full disclosure. As a result, America had no choice but to asssume that something was wrong. This has been spun into the idea that Bush based the war on actual knowledge of WMDs. Whose fault is this, the press for trying to spin negative or Bush for failing to push back?

Both. It’s also interesting that before the war people were complaining that Bush was attacking too soon, when even he admitted that an attack wasn’t imminent — but now the same people are complaining that “Bush fooled us into thinking it was imminent!”

I think that people — like, say, Kerry — who supported the war last year but want to criticize Bush on it now have to claim that they were fooled.

Of course, that translates into: “Support me — I’m gullible!” Which doesn’t sound like much of a slogan.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here, charging the Kerry Campaign Blog with doctoring quotes to misrepresent the Bush Administration’s positions.