I agree. They didn't need to apologize for those words.
I'll repeat what I said last night when I was offering my tepid criticism (gasp) of the president's handling of the media as it related to this particular weapons story.
In the book A Matter of Character, the Bush administration made a decision early on how to handle the media. They did not want to be like Clinton running from fire to fire as critical articles emerged in the media.
So a decision was made to stay on message rather than reacting to critical stories. They did not want to let the media drive the agenda.
Sometimes that approach works. SOmetimes it doesn't. Rove admits in the book there have been some instances where it clearly didn't work.
(Putting on my body armor once again)