Dean: Some of the things the president said on our way into Iraq. They just weren't true and I don't think that's right.
Russert: Such as?
Dean: Such as the weapons of mass destruction, which we have all known about.
Russert: You said there were weapons of mass destruction.
Dean: I said I wasn't sure, but I said I thought there probably were. But the thing that really bothered me the most, which the 9/11 commission said also wasn't true, is the insinuation the president continues to make to this day, that Osama bin Laden had something to do with supporting terrorists that attacked the United States. That is false. The 9/11 commission chaired by a Republican said it was false. It is wrong to send people to war without telling them the truth. And the truth was that Osama bin Laden was a very bad person who was doing terrible things, but that Iraq was never a threat to the United States. That is the truth. It was underlined by the 9/11 commission, headed again by a Republican--well respected group of people--I don't think you send American men and women to war, first of all without properly equipping them, and secondly without telling the truth to their parents about why it is you're asking [them] to make that sacrifice. So, those are the kinds of things that I think are very bad about the Republicans.
Russert doesn't seem to catch the error. Obviously this is just a verbal slip, but it kind of undercuts your message about Bush falsely accusing Saddam Hussein if you yourself can't keep him and Osama bin Laden separate.
Actually, it's not an error of keeping them separate. The only slip is that one word, "the", is missing. Corrected sentence:
"... that Osama bin Laden had something to do with supporting (the) terrorists that attacked the United States."
With that correction, everything else in the statement is accurate. The Bush administration was in fact promoting heavily the misinformation that bin Laden was behind 9/11.
Zed,
I think what EKR is pointing out is that if you replace "Osama Bin Laden" with "Saddam Hussein" in what Mr. Dean said, his statement makes a lot more sense.