[Dog Gone]

“That statement caught me up short. What an unusual concern to express in such a meeting.… I’ve often wondered since then what George Bush might have been told about me that would make him begin this conversation, this relationship, from an implied position of mistrust.”

You just have to laugh at that one.

[Fledermaus]

You have to more than laugh, you have to read between the lines and find a man (Daschle) so detracted from the real world that he finds Bush's statement offensive.

It wasn't that Bush had heard something about him (other than being able to read the newspapers or watch TV in which Tom lied all the time), it was simply a plain spoken man, being the President, telling a collegue that he doesn't like being lied to, so don't do it and we'll get along.

Sounds like typical Texas talk to me. But then Daschle has lived in DC for so long, how would he know?