President Bush was interviewed by Brit Hume of FOX NEWS Monday and didn't denounce the claims made by Colin Powell, NBC and many others that Iraq is engaged in a civil war. If you've seen as much of his interviews as I have you would know that Bush offers up strong opinions about the Iraq war. When Hume asked him to comment--his usual answer would have been to say something like: Iraq is not in a civil war! There's a lot of violence, but...End of discussion. Not this time. He bobbed and weaved and used the "some might say" meme.

Download -WMP Download -QT (rough transcript)

Bush: I've heard a lot of voices say that---ahhh, and umm I talked to people there in Iraq who don't believe that's the case. For example some would argue that the fact that...ummm 90% of the country---most of the country outside of the Baghdad area is relatively peaceful---doesn't indicate a civil war as far as they're concerned. By the way, I get briefings all the time about where the level of violence is and the American people would be interested to know most of it occurs around the Baghdad area...There's all kinds of arguments...No question it's violent..

Why didn't he just denounce it if he thought a civil war was not happening? I was expecting him to rant against the media like Bill O'Reilly did.

NBC News has declared that there is indeed a civil war in Iraq. Now that's not shocking, because NBC is the most aggressive anti-Bush network these days, as they have made a calculated effort to woo left-wing viewers.

The question is: Is NBC wrong about Iraq? The answer is yes — at this point. (link )

Since Rumsfeld was bounced, Hume also asked him why Casey and Abizaid weren't held accountable either. He dodged that question as well.

Newshounds has a different take on Hume's questions.