BUSH AND KERRY DIDN'T SEE THE SAME PRE-WAR INTELLIGENCE

I was waiting for a transcript of Richard Holbrooke's remarks on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, but just discovered that I'd have to pay $20 to get it, so that's out. The point I was hoping to clarify was Holbrooke's response to Bush's "[Kerry] saw the same intelligence I did," remark during the debate. When Steph threw it out during their interview Sunday, Holbrooke insisted that Kerry most certainly did NOT see the same intelligence as Bush. In fact, Kerry wasn't even on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and while those members saw more intelligence than other Senators, even they weren't privy to all that Bush knew.

This isn't close to the first time the issue has been raised, and it's always by some Republican trying to take the heat off their man by implying that if Kerry and Bush came to the same conclusion (that Saddam was a threat), it was because they had the same key inputs. This is patently false, and Democratic spokespeople need to start countering it. I really don't know why it's taken this long.