As he often does at campaign events, President Bush got his biggest rise out of the crowd in Bangor Thursday afternoon when he said he was simply paraphrasing Senator John F. Kerry's statements.

"Incredibly, this week my opponent said he would prefer the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein to the situation in Iraq today," Bush said at a campaign rally at Bangor International Airport, drawing a round of boos.

There was just one problem: Kerry never said what Bush said he did. In a major address Monday in New York City, where Kerry laid out his opposition to the manner in which Bush invaded Iraq, he was careful to call Hussein "a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell."

"The satisfaction that we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure," Kerry said, blaming what he described as Bush's lack of diplomacy and proper war planning for putting the nation at greater danger.

Posted by: Jonathan Singer / 8:57 PM | Basie! Home