I'm sitting here at my in-laws listening to CNN's Late Edition and they keep playing clips of President Bush saying that if he didn't believe we could succeed in Iraq he wouldn't have ordered the invasion or our troops wouldn't still be there or... well, you get the idea.  My response is that it really doesn't matter what the President "believes", the objective facts on the ground render what he "believes" a cheap rhetorical trick to avoid any sort of accountability for the results of his policies. 

Let's look at it another way, I'm sure that Mr. Bush wouldn't have gone into the oil business if he didn't "believe" that he would make a lot of money.  The results: four or five failed companies, a lot of investors who lost a lot of money and Mr. Bush still makes money as a tax write-off for Bush family friends who continually bail him out.  Looks pretty similar to me.... except I'm not sure about the family friends bailing him out of this one?