Ignorance? Or willful manipulation?

The latest outlandish quote from the source of so many others...

"The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th, and that’s why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home."
-George W. Bush, July 12, 2007

No, you clueless simpleton, the two groups are decidedly not the same.

But while American intelligence agencies have pointed to links between leaders of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the top leadership of the broader Qaeda group, the militant group is in many respects an Iraqi phenomenon. They believe the membership of the group is overwhelmingly Iraqi. Its financing is derived largely indigenously from kidnappings and other criminal activities. And many of its most ardent foes are close at home, namely the Shiite militias and the Iranians who are deemed to support them.

Note to Bush apologists: My use of the term "clueless simpleton" is being exceedingly generous. It implies that he genuinely does not recognize the difference between the two terrorist groups. However, many others might argue that he's fully aware of the sharp distinctions between the two, but is intentionally blurring those distinctions, and talking about the two groups as if they are one and the same, to willfully exploit the country's still-festering resentment and trauma about 9/11 to justify both the invasion of Iraq and its continuing occupation, cynically manipulating the public's fear to legitimatize his failed policies.

But that's what others might argue. That's not what I'm saying. Not here, anyway.