Bush: Live Speech - Dead Wrong

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This is.

"When the history of this period is written, the liberation of Afghanistan and the liberation of Iraq will be remembered as great turning points in the story of freedom." George W. Bush.

So much chutzpah. So little time.

I had to collect myself before commenting on the President's latest PR fiesta -- or rather, fiasco. The cynical, manipulative, unmitigated GALL of the man to deliver a speech which perpetrates yet another fraud on the country had me speechless with outrage.

You'll be happy to know I got over it. Now, somebody's gonna get hurt.

The President's numbers are slipping. Bigtime. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Tuesday showed the country's finally fed up with the Bush administration's phony war. A solid 53 percent say sending troops to Iraq was a mistake. And a whopping 61 percent think the President doesn't have a handle on handling the whole situation. Whoa. Apparently more people are reading the Downing Street Memo than we supposed.

Bush's handlers had to do something fast to save his image. Karl Rove got it: let's put on a show! We'll do it Live, on TV, in front of Our Brave Fighting Men and Women in Uniform. And while we're at it, let's capitalize on the stupidity and gullibility of the American people -- we'll hit that 9/11 button over and over and over to distract them from the growing body count in Iraq.

The smug bastards. What an insult to the families of those lost on 9/11 to use--to abuse--their memories to shore up a failing political agenda. What an equally gross injustice to diminish the heroic sacrifice of thousands of American personnel fighting and dying in Iraq in an unholy war begun under false pretenses.

And what an affront to our soldiers that once again the President used a military installation--this time Fr. Bragg, an appropriate name for his effort--as the venue for his attempt to gain positive PR. Where are the Presidential photo ops at other military bases? You know, the ones where he stands next to all the coffins of all the soldiers killed in this immoral war? It's fitting he got the same silence from the live soldiers at Ft. Bragg as he would have received from rows of military caskets at Dover.

Saddam Hussein is long gone. Weapons of Mass Destruction were never there. Osama Bin Laden--invoked by Bush over and over as the ultimate bogeyman--was never there. But arguably, as long as America is in Iraq, terrorists have a place and a cause and an unending stream of targets.

There are two sentences from the President's speech that sum up for me the stunning hubris and ignominy of this administration.

Our strategy to defend ourselves and spread freedom is working.

The rise of freedom in this vital region will eliminate the conditions that feed radicalism and ideologies of murder and make our nation safer.

Are they serious? Does George W. Bush really claim to be the savior of the Middle East? If he believes that--and expects us to swallow it--he's even more dangerous than we could have imagined.

Senator Chuck Hagel noted that the administration was "disconnected from reality" about Iraq. I'd go a few steps farther. The last time the Bush administration looked reality in the face was -- well, come to think of it, never. Because to do so would mean admitting they've been wr--wr--wr--WRONG.