The Better Rhetor takes on the Bush/Rove Bait-n-Switch technique:

It’s a bait and switch. Rather than continuing to argue for the merits of their position—an argument they have concluded they cannot win—they now want to shift the terms of the debate. They don’t want to talk anymore, in other words, about whether we should invade Iraq. We are supposed to accept the fiction that this has been already settled, and we are now in the "next phase" of discussing what to do in post-war Iraq. That way they can shift the discussion, aided by our feckless media, away from their losing hand and onto another topic—one that presumes the Bushies won the original debate. ... By shifting the terms of the debate from whether to after; by pretending that the question was settled, and that they won. And by counting on the rest of us to believe it. Call it The Rhetoric of Make Believe. It’s vital we remind ourselves: The argument has NOT been settled. The case has not been made And war is not inevitable. Bush is losing this debate. Let's not let him walk away from the table pretending that he won.

The candidate that will beat Bush in 2004 is the one that can force him to keep talking about the current topic and not something six months down the road. Bush does not get to define reality just because he has a special line to God.