Bush was just waxing historical.  It had nothing to do with the situation today.  Weird, then, how he used the present tense in this sentence:

"Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along."

As for your apparent thesis that any factual statement is kosher and not to be criticized, I guess you wouldn't quibble with Jesse Jackson Jr's statement about Hillary not crying about Katrina.  I thought that was pretty deplorable myself.