If the Taliban is gone, who keeps shooting at our soldiers?

It has been reported that while campaigning this week, Pres. Bush stated:

And as a result of the United States military, Taliban no
longer is in existence." (emphasis added)

This appears to be an accurate quote (cannot find a link to transcript other than this or in a press release from Kerry campaign), and folks are noting that sounds like former Pres. Gerald Ford's infamous, unfortunate statement in a 1976 presidential debate with Jimmy Carner that "there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe."

Another one from December 2001:

Well, Jordan, you're not going to believe what state I was in when I heard about the terrorist attack. I was in Florida. And my Chief of Staff, Andy Card -- actually, I was in a classroom talking about a reading program that works. I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower -- the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly, myself, and I said, well, there's one terrible pilot. I said, it must have been a horrible accident. But I was whisked off there, I didn't have much time to think
about it.

And I was sitting in the classroom, and Andy Card, my Chief of Staff, who is sitting over here, walked in and said, "A second plane has hit the tower, America is under attack."

In case you did not catch this, Pres. Bush stated that he saw the first plane hitting the WTC as it occurred. There is no question that it was not televised live (and CNB does not subscribe to conspiracy theories related to this), so it may be that Pres. Bush was just mistaken. However, Pres. Bush repeated his recollection in January 2002, which would tend to make it appear less likely that the December 2001 statement was a mere slip of the tongue. Remember Al Gore and the Internet -- seems kind of inconsequential by comparison, doesn't it?

It was well-reported that Kerry took RNC heat yesterday for his fractured explanation of his previous statement about voting "for the $87 billion before [he] voted against it" (which factcheck.org did a better job explaining than Kerry ever has).