Gomer Pyle, Preznit in Chief

Kevin Drum does the work, so I don't have to:

George Bush, Tuesday: "...new technologies will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025."

As soon as Bush finished that sentence, I knew he would catch hell from his base. Don't they at least talk to these people before putting such outright lies in the State of the Union? - Z

Wednesday: "One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally....'This was purely an example,' Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said."

George Bush, later on Wednesday: "Bush expressed hope, as he did in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, for cutting oil imports from the Mideast. 'I believe in a relatively quick period of time, within my lifetime, we'll be able to reduce if not end dependence on Middle Eastern oil....I meant what I said last night, that America's addiction to oil is bad for this country.'"