Actually, they don't have to bring him down to have an effect. An administration only has so many man-hours to advance it's agenda. Rove, himself, only has so many. The rats have successfully made Bush and Rove waste a whole bunch of time on this instead of the WOT, getting ready for the supreme court confirmation battle, reorienting its immigration strategy and so forth. Plus, a small bonus for them is that some independents will decide that Bush has been dishonest because they don't bother to understand what really happened and only read the Old Media headlines.
Net net, this has advanced the left wing agenda and slowed down ours. Look at all the energy expended on FR, Rush, Hannity etc just putting this stupid non-story back in the bottle.
I suppose you have a point, but it doesn't seem to me that President Bush has been giving this "issue" all that much thought. The dems have been trying stuff like this ever since President Bush got elected. He's used to it by now.
As for those who will conclude that President Bush is dishonest and won't bother to investigate further, that's one good reason to have this discussed on sites like FR, and for the issue to be exposed for the BS that it is. I see it as time and energy well-spent.
I also think people have formed their opinions already on President Bush, good or bad.