By the way

Did anyone notice this?

President Bush denied reports Friday that the CIA had disbanded a special unit hunting Osama bin Laden.

"It's just an incorrect story. We have a lot of assets looking for Osama bin Laden," Mr. Bush said.

Hmm, that's strange. A lot of people seem to be under the impression that the unit was indeed disbanded, including the CIA.

The CIA has closed down a secret unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, according to intelligence officials.

The terrorist tracking unit, known inside the spy agency as "Alec station," was disbanded late last year and its analysts reassigned to other offices within the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, the officials said Monday.

The decision is a milestone of sorts for the agency, which created the unit before bin Laden became a household name and bolstered its ranks after the Sept. 11 attacks, when President George W. Bush pledged to bring bin Laden to justice "dead or alive."

The realignment reflects a view that Al Qaeda is no longer as hierarchical as it once was, intelligence officials said, as well as growing concern about Al Qaeda-inspired groups that have begun carrying out attacks independent of bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

CIA officials said that tracking bin Laden and his deputies remained a high priority, and that the decision to disband the unit was not a sign that the effort had slackened. Instead, the officials said, the realignment reflects a belief that the agency can better deal with high-level threats by focusing on regional trends rather than on specific organizations or individuals.

"The efforts to find Osama bin Laden are as strong as ever," said Jennifer Dyck, a CIA spokeswoman. "This is an agile agency, and the decision was made to ensure greater reach and focus" for counterterrorism efforts.

I wonder what decision Ms. Dyck was talking about, or how she, a CIA employee, came to be under the mistaken impression that the unit was closed.

OK, since that scenario is ridiculous, I can only presume that Bush was lying.

That already makes more sense.

It wouldn't do to have opponents scoring political points, especially on the issue that is Bush's alleged strength. So Bush just denied it. It's not like members of the liberal media are going to call him on it or defend themselves, even though he basically accused them of getting the story wrong.

Remember when that kind of thing used to bother professional journalists?

Neither do I.