There's the sociopathic personality we all remember coming to the fore again. If his excuse for the comment was true, it wouldn't have taken a strategic genius to see that if he'd simply said, "I was trying to insult Bush and blew it. Sorry about that, troops."; then he'd have completely disarmed his political opponents. But either (a) the excuse is pure b.s., (b) even that degree of admission is something that his ego won't allow, or (c) all of the above. Personally, I'm going with (c).