Spencer Ackerman September 12, 2007, 3:47 PM

Surely this counts as a new land speed record for dropping something down the memory hole.

Tomorrow, President Bush will endorse the Petraeus plan for removing five Army surge brigades by July 2008. He’s going to portray that incremental reduction as the spoils of victory. Just yesterday, however, Gen. Petraeus conceded that “the string is going to run out” on the deployments of the surge brigades by the summer, and since the active-duty Army doesn’t have any more available brigades to send in relief and the reserve component (the National Guard and Army Reserve) is overtaxed as well, the surge just has to come to an end — unless the Pentagon is willing to extend active-duty deployments even further, which Secretary Gates pledged in April not to do.

Just don’t tell any of that to Tony Snow. “Wrong. You don’t have to pull ‘em out,” Snow said today at the daily press briefing when challenged by a reporter.

Snow tried to portray the reporter’s inquiry as an attack on Petraeus’ credibility, even though Petraeus himself acknowledged the fact yesterday.

David Petraeus, Iraq