President Bush's speech last night was delivered well. He made strong points. He provided solid reasoning. In short, he did all he intended to do.
The problem lay in his intentions. He apparently intended to use the fifth anniversary of the greatest tragedy in American history to rally support for the war in Iraq. A very political move in a very political time of the year. The mid-term elections will take place in less than two months and this speech sounded like a president trying to keep his party in power.
Again, he did this well. He sounded very convincing in his explanation of why Iraq is important. To me going into Iraq was never the problem. The execution of the battle plan in Iraq (or more directly, the battle plan itself) has always been the problem. We expected a tough victory, but what we've gotten is a tough quagmire.
But that isn't what yesterday should have been about. His speech should have been sprinkled with a mention or two of Iraq. A reminder to Americans that our men and women in the armed services are still carrying out duties and need support. Instead the speech was dominated by Iraq and justifications.
What I wanted to hear is that we still morn the loss, but we are stronger now than we were five years ago. I wanted to hear how we are moving on. I wanted to hear human interest stories. Instead I got political rhetoric. I expected better.
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6 comments:
I'm telling you, George W. Bush has got the worst polical machine ever in the history of our country including all presidential candidates that were never elected.
Forget all of the issues and Democrat/Republican junk, how in the world is it that he could think that turning a memorial speech into a political speech? And at least think that would fly?
I'm not particularly proud to say that I voted for John Kerry, but George W. Bush brought this country through 9/11. Then after few short years later found himself in dog fight to get re-elected.
If you were like me and thought, "How in the world did we get here?" Last night showed you why.
He probably had 15 advisors read that speech and they all signed off on it as perfectly appropriate. Sure he's a lame duck, but right now it just seems like he's a lame duck puppet for his party and not doing a very good job at it.
You can appreciate the thought that said, "this is the perfect time to convince people that what we're doing is just and right. It's a time of high patriotism and a time when wounds are revisited."
But that's just flawed logic. And like bratch said, someone of the countless people who read that speech, and especially whoever wrote it, should have said, "NO, NO! This ain't the time for that."
To me, its another instance of a politician wrongly believing everyone else cares about politics. We don't.
I didn't see the speech, in fact, I saw a brief second of it when it was replayed on one of the news channels and I saw Bush talking about Iraq. I immediatly turned it off. This isn't about Iraq, but Bush and his cronies keep trying to make it about Iraq. This isn't even about Bin Laden. It is about us and the honoring of those lost and the healing and strength of those left behind.
I didn't expect anything less from Bush because his party is in a dog fight come November, but there is plenty of time for political speeches then.
I think he screwed up because he reminded folks that Iraq was not 9/11, Bin Laden and Afghanistan are. We relented on the man who took down the towers to go after a dictator with no WMDs. Saddam needed to go, but we should have finished the job we started out to do and brought Bin Laden to justice. If we had done that, then Bush wouldn't have to shove Iraq down our throats on this day of remembrance.
Bush may be one of the worst politicians in history, yet he continues to play political games. Games he continues to lose.
You are exactly right, Travis.
He may be the worst politician ever and yet he still did everything he could possibly do in a political career.
It actually makes me question the intelligence of our country that we elected this goofball twice.
What this should do is make democrats wonder what they've been doing wrong.
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