what stayin' the course means

The president has shifted language on Iraq before. At a news conference in August, he returned to his prewar argument that Saddam Hussein harbored terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Hussein "had relations with Zarqawi," Bush said. Weeks later, the Senate intelligence committee concluded that Hussein "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye to Zarqawi" and that the U.S. government knew that before the invasion. At his next news conference, Bush was asked about that. "I never said there was an operational relationship," he said.

This is reminiscent of Brown (of "you're doing a heckuvah job brownie" fame) who claimed not knowing about the 10,000 people in the superdome. When confronted with the fact that the information had been disclosed by CNN for days, he said he didn't know it "factually".