Bush's Iraq Speech

Junior hasn’t learned a damn thing!

That’s the impression I got watching Bush Junior address the nation last night about what he wants to do with Iraq. He didn’t try to sell the American people that there’s a “new course” or a “new direction”. He basically said, “mistakes were made, blame me for them, but I’m sending in more troops and we’re going to do whatever it takes to knock off the violence there.”

In other words… “stay the course”… with more troops, both on our side and on the Iraqis. Oh, and it’s not going to be easy, and people are going to die, but we gotta keep going. Boil those twenty minutes down and that's what you get.

And of course he invoked 9/11… AGAIN! He invoked the same pattern of fear-mongering that has slowly pissed away his credibility with the masses.

Junior basically carried on like it was business as usual. He acted as if the Republicans were still in charge in the Congress and ready to rubber-stamp his plans into place.

He wasn't trying to SELL us the idea of sticking with his program. He was DICTATING it to us. He was TELLING us what the course of action will be, as if we do not have any kind of a say in it.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. He still has that dwindling number of conservative and neo-conservative mentalities that are eager to kiss his ass and worship him. He still has his attack dogs in the talk show circuit. He still has his inner circle, although that got dwindled down somewhat with his cheerleader Harriet Meyers leaving and him having to dump “Zen-Master Rummy” right after the election. As long as he has his worshipers, he'll continue to act like Caesar.

Some of that time and effort of the past week should have been spent preparing a better address. There were some good elements to it, and at least he understands that THERE ARE problems that need to be resolved. But the American people need to know that (1) we’re not going to be there forever, continually throwing good soldiers into harm’s way and (2) what those conditions are that will let us know that this WILL come to an end. We don't need a timetable, we just need to know what the conditions are!

And dammit, LAY OFF THE 9/11 CRAP! The next time our President invokes 9/11, it had damn well better be to announce that we FOUND AND KILLED Osama! Nothing less will suffice. We avenged Pearl Harbor and then moved on. We didn't use it as an excuse to start the Cold War. The same thing applies here.

Yes, we need to finish what we started in Iraq. We need to clean up the mess that we helped to create. But somewhere in the course of that clean-up we have to come to the realization that THERE HAS to be an ending! Whether you agree or disagree with why we went over there or why we're still there now, you have to admit that at some point WE MUST bring our soldiers home! If sending more troops allows that reality to happen sooner rather than later, then by all means do it.

THAT is what Junior should have been selling to the American people. But he didn't do that! He simply DICTATED what the course of action will be, without any kind of bright side to it all, and then expects us to simply go along. If he is wondering why nobody's buying it, he has only himself to blame.

Someone once said that the definition of stupidity is doing the exact same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Whoever came up with that definition should not only be doing the speechwriting for the White House, but they should also be in on that “inner circle” so they can be REMINDED of it.