We listened to part of the Presidents speech the other night--and then read the whole thing on-line--in my summer class on Public Opinion and Propaganda. One of the questions students raised afterwards was (something very much like) "Everyone knows he's lying. How are the troops responding to this?" I said I honestly didn't know. But everyone in the class noticed that there wasn't a whole lot of reaction from his live, military audience at Fort Bragg, NC.
On Wednesday, as Mr. Bush's repeated use of the imagery of the Sept. 11 attacks drew bitter criticism from Congressional Democrats, there was a parallel debate under way about whether the troops sat on their hands because they were not impressed, or because they thought that was their orders.
Oh, that's it. The White House ordered the troops not to applaud. This is the same White House that ordered the troops to applaud on May 3, 2003 against the backdrop of a White House-sponsored "Mission Accomplished" sign. Sure. That makes sense. Uh....right? Anyway, American GIs would do anything for their Commander-in-Cheat. And he would do anything for them. Uh....right?
With Iraq once more atop the political agenda, the Senate on Wednesday gave hasty approval to an additional $1.5 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs, to cover a budget gap caused in part by unexpected demands for health care by returning Iraqi veterans.
Oh, uh, well, we didn't anticipate all those casualties as we were busy preparing an invasion with too few troops and insufficient protection.
While the White House tried to explain the silence, Democrats were critical of Mr. Bush's use of the Sept. 11 attacks - comparing it to the administration's argument, before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, that Saddam Hussein had links to Al Qaeda. The independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks found no evidence of "a collaborative operational relationship" between Iraq and Osama bin Laden's organization.
Are we really still talking about this?
Mr. Bush declared in his speech, as he has many times in recent months, that the Iraq campaign is part of a wider war on terrorism that was brought home to America on Sept. 11, 2001.
Hey, Spinmeisters: We ALL heard what he said. Clear as a bell. The Denver Post lamented, "The president repeatedly invoked the Sept. 11 attacks to press for public support of U.S. policy in Iraq. We had hoped he would retire this gimmick." The Kennebec (ME) Journal sounded a bit testy about it (and these are the folks he vacations with): "In a speech that was broadcast worldwide, Bush reaffirmed his "stay the course" commitment to the conflict. And for the umpteenth time, he attempted -- again, unconvincingly -- to link the Iraqi insurgency with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington that killed about 3,000 people." Newsday put it bluntly: "President George W. Bush went to the American people Tuesday night to explain why the nation must stay the course in Iraq and the kernel of his televised message was: 9/11-terrorism, 9/11-terrorism. That is not enough and it will not do." Bloomberg.com noted that the speech didn't seem to help Bush's cause all that much: "U.S. President George W. Bush's public approval rating remained in negative territory after a nationally televised address on Iraq, a new poll has found. The poll by Utica, New York-based Zogby International reported that 43 percent of those surveyed approved of Bush's job performance and 56 percent disapproved." But some people will never let this dead dog lie, no matter what the evidence, and Bush is exploiting this "faith."
Mr. Bush, his aides said, was referring not to the past, but to the arrival in Iraq of terrorists linked to Al Qaeda once Mr. Hussein's government fell.
Oh, just stop, okay? For the love of God, just stop.
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