You cannot carry a war effort over the years with only one ad-libbed sentence you came up with before the first American shot in the war was fired.
The War on Terror may very well have been lost by Bush's inability to keep the American Home Front from becoming demoralized.
As I wrote in my last post:
"Have you ever heard the term "contact embarrassment"? That is that cringing feeling of embarrassment for somebody else that you get when somebody is doing so badly that you want to leave the room or switch the TV channel or radio station. That is the feeling I have had listening to George W. Bush defending a position that I supported. It was so bad, I had to turn the car radio off."
Sounds like you heard Harry Reid and found him more persuasive. Nothing to do with the media naaahhhhh...It always gave Bush his due.