The most ironic part, I thought, was his description of Iraq's new government as "an ally of growing strength."

Does he mean the same Iraqi government which is dominated by Iranian-backed Shi'ite fundamentalist parties?  (And it's highly likely those parties won enough votes last week to retain control.)

Hardly a government which is likely to be an "ally" over the long term...

Juan Cole


Since Bush is going to say Sunday that the Sunni Arab participation in the elections suggests a near end of major guerrilla violence, let me just repeat what I said Thursday: the history of guerrilla insurgencies is replete with groups that simulaneously fought on both the political and paramilitary fronts. Listen to how angry the Sunni politicians are, as they speak out in the wake of the elections, both at Bush and at the Shiites, and you get a sense of how detached the Bush administration remains from reality

Al-Hayat [Ar.] : The London-based Saudi daily says that most signs suggest that the bloc of young Shiite nationalist Muqtada al-Sadr will form a major element in the new Iraqi parliament, and that other parties will seek an alliance with it. Among the first to broach such an alliance is outgoing prime minister Ibrahim Jaafari, who spoke in Najaf on Saturday.
 
As for the Sunni Arabs, they celebrated their return as a power in political life, forming processions in various cities. The leader of the Concord Front thanked the armed resistance for refraining from attacks on Sunnis who came out to vote.

[AP says that Adnan Dulaimi, leader of an important Sunni bloc, expressed a willingness to ally either with the Kurds and the Allawi list, or with the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance. He is quoted as saying, "For the sake of Iraq, there is nothing impossible. We have to forget the past and we extend our hands to everybody. . ." Dulaimi is a Sunni fundamentalist, and obviously differs with his secular colleague, Salih Mutlak.

[A parliament jointly dominated by Muqtada Al-Sadr's people and Sunnis like Dulaimi would certainly demand an early departure of US troops. To Mickey Kaus, who asked why I thought parliament might make such a demand even though it is clear that the parliament could not keep order in the country if the US troops suddenly left, I would just reply: have you been listening to what the Sunni parties and the Sadrists have been saying for the past 2 1/2 years? Asking why politicians might do something that causes chaos is sort of naive, isn't it? Surely George W. Bush wouldn't have risked destabilizing Iraq and the Middle East with a rushed invasion based on faulty intelligence? He thinks Muqtada al-Sadr and Salih Mutlak are better than Bush?]

Bill ..that is something that Democrats tend to forget as they quail and wring their hands in a cold sweat waiting for the next Rovian reaming...

I don';t know how many watched the speech, but I,for one, thought it effective.

Remember; as they say in the restaurant industry,"Presentation is Everything." 

From reading the transcripts, the speech was about shoring up confidence in Bush's credibility as much as it was shoring up support for Iraq.  That he has to make a speech like this says a lot about where he sees the debate moving.  The question soon becomes, How many times can he give speeches like this and get results?  How many times will the media report each new Iraqi vote as a "success" and a "sign of progress"?  

Given too often, such speeches rob you of the very credibilty you were hoping to inspire.  

This is the "reaching out" part.  Joe Lieberman's plea to stop undermining Bush's credibilty - that's the answer we're supposed to give.

Thinks he's Lincoln:

know that some of my decisions have led to terrible loss — and not one of those decisions has been taken lightly. I know this war is controversial — yet being your president requires doing what I believe is right and accepting the consequences. And I have never been more certain that America's actions in Iraq are essential to the security of our citizens, and will lay the foundation of peace for our children and grandchildren.

Next week, Americans will gather to celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah. Many families will be praying for loved ones spending this season far from home — in Iraq, Afghanistan and other dangerous places. Our Nation joins in those prayers. We pray for the safety and strength of our troops. We trust, with them, in a love that conquers all fear, and a light that reaches the darkest corners of the Earth. And we remember the words of the Christmas carol, written during the Civil War: "God is not dead, nor (does) He sleep; the Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, with peace on Earth, good-will to men."

Thank you, and good night.


1000 Days....we beat Japan and Germany in 1000 days..


Just Saying What His Spin Dr. Feaver Told Him to Say

We're winning the war!!

Trust me

This is just more Bamboozlepalooza.  

nice object lesson in the rhetorical possibilities of the straw man and the false dilemma.

Yes.

As an effort to smear the opposition, it's good work.

Possibly. Depends upon what the opposition does from now on. The speechwriter and his advisors had to guess. Often in the past, they have had a good bead on what would happen with that. From listening to a repeat just now, I would say that they found that admitting failure didn't poll too well as a tactic. That would be common sense to most people, but not to chairman of the DNC.

He was also clearly asking for total executive and Pentagon power in the handling everything. He spoke of not allowing "politicians in Washington" to set artificial timetables. He didn't say the opposition; he seemed to imply Congress as a whole. He asked specifically that representatives (I didn't catch the term but it was implied) make sure the troops get what they need. He was telling them all to be obedient, trust him, and get behind him. I dunno if the majority of the American public is going to go for the "trust me" one, especially those that remember LBJ's lectures on Vietnam or if they keep up with other recent news on the administration...and I don't mean news junkies like us, I mean someone who reads Time or Newsweek.

Oakland: Ya sold me, but I don't sit in the House so I can't start impeachment proceedings.
In Re Mathews surprising franknessHe has a hell of a nerve callilng on Dems to stop dicking around. If he said this last week, I'd be willing to bet that he's dismissed Dem. criticism as "carping" or "whining" twice since then. Mayhap he's too much of a chucklehead to realize that his beloved McCain is far more in a position to call Bush out than the entire Dem caucus in the house combined.

So. how many other people here can no longer stand to listen to five consecutive words from that inarticulate illiterate buffoon?

I meean, I deal with teenage "college" students nowadays who can't string 4 words together in succession that make sense (I think of these illiterates going through on the policy of "we don't want to flunk the poor lad and harm his self-image," and how I actually had to demonstrate some competency during an "at risk" summer quarter, and the two do not compute), and this blithering idiot (who only went to school on the grounds of being his daddy's son) has people who can string words together well, and the Generation Zzzzzzzzzz morons would sound more intelligent!

That fucking clown is an insult to America by his daily existence.

The focus on elections as a measure of success has always puzzled me. Certainly conducting peacefull elections is a positiive step, but there are countles examples of safe, successful and meaningless elections througout history.

As someone noted above, the Irish are well-aquainted with the "effectiveness" of safe elections in combatting militants.

Another commenter also noted, the President's speeches are starting to veer into LBJ/Nixon-style assurances of progress.

There is a distinct aura of unreality when the President speaks. The folks who follow TPM, Washington Monthly and other sites are avid followers of the news and so are likely to be more aware of the odd juxtaposition of the President's rhetoric and the reality facing the rest of us.

Yet I encounter growing numbers of people who are simply baffled by the man. These are not news-oriented people who really keep up. Its the casual voter who has a few issues they are into and basically assumes that  what comes accross from the anchors is, well, the way it is. More and more I have been getting the, "You are into that whole politics thing, you keep up with all that, what the hell is going on?" Bush voters and Kerry voters alike. I have worked in the microbrewery business for many years and now I write for a couple newspapers in St. Louis as well, so its a fairly broad range of people I encounter.

I get the feeling the President's 40% (avg) approval rating is optomistic. Several percent of that is made up of people who don't feel comfortable publicly criticising the President, but sure aren't going to vote for him.

   We Americans really need to put things in perspective, to get some sense of proportion.  President Bush is a foolish man with very poor judgment with and serious personality deficiencies.   His record speaks for itself; it is a disaster.

    "You are statistically far more likely to get killed or injured in a car than you are by a terrorist."  This from a comment on another blog, but it is a clear statement of how far down Idiot Road we Americans have been taken by the Bush Administration. George W. Bush is a fake; he doesn't keep us safe from anything. 

    The best thing we could do for Iraq is to get all of our troops out as fast as we can.   America can't export democracy when we spy on our own citizens and when the FBI shows up at our door for reading the wrong books.  What an outrage!  What an obscene perversion of the vision of our founders.

    The rest of the world looks on  us now more  with pity than respect and keeps wondering how we can still allow this man to remain in office.     

   This diatribe is out of place here because it, in no way contributes to any kind of worthwhile discourse. As a grad student, I give it a C- for structure, a D- for content and a solid F for tact.

Noam Chomsky has claimed from day one that a permanent presence in the region has been our real reason for going into Iraq. I don't think we are "headed" towards disaster. We are in the midst of a Bush induced major disaster for the USA and the world in just about every way you can think of.

Why don't we all just tell Bush what a genius he is, how the war is going well (in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, and that things are going so swimmingly we can get our troops the hell out of there?

Trust, my dear lady, is something which no president in the history of the United States has ever earned; save possibly Abraham Lincoln.  Every president has lied, and anyone who ever occupies the White House in the future will lie.  That Bush has not been a particularly good liar does not mean he is far removed from Clinton who was an outstanding liar (except when he got caught with the 'sexual relations with that woman' barb).

My favorite line was, "My most solemn responsibility is to protect our nation, and that requires me to make some tough decisions."

Um, no.  It requires you to make some CORRECT decisions.  Tough is nice, but it's really not a big part of your job--I mean, you sit in the oval office, you have an in-house chef, a private jet and helicopter, you don't carry a wallet--your job isn't "tough" like being a soldier on patrol in Baghdad is tough.  

We've got a whole army of guys who specialize in "tough."  What we need you to be is RIGHT.  

Is he ever gonna get that?

My favorite line was,

Theora, we all have our favorite lines from the speeches of our noble leader.  I liked these:

I also want to speak to those of you who did not support my decision to send troops to Iraq: I have heard your disagreement, and I know how deeply it is felt.

So he really does understand what's in the hearts of those of us who disagree with him.

Oh, but then the very next words are these:

Yet now there are only two options before our country -- victory or defeat

That sounds sort of like he's telling us to shut up.  This is very confusing.  What to do?

tlees2

 I could not disagree more.  With a parade of senators and congressmen returning from Iraq praising the advancement of the work there (capped, of course, By Joe Lieberman a couple weeks ago), along with diminishing roadside detonations and a higher-than-expected voter turnout during the elections, one can claim that things are moving in the proper direction in Iraq.  Of course there is still violence and insurgency; this is a war after all.  My point is not that the negative stories in Iraq should not be covered.  In fact, they are more newsworthy which is why the media covers them (in Academia this is called Agenda Setting).  But there have been relatively few substantive stories about positive happenings in Iraq when these do certainly exist.  In fact, Lieberman himself pointed out that the standard of living outside of the Sunni Triangle is better than where it was when Saddam Hussein was still in power.  Even in Baghdad schools, hospitals, and power facilities have been adequately restored.  But the media would never waste time on the opening of hospital which can serve thousands; that certainly is not newsworthy.

"You are statistically far more likely to get killed or injured in a car than you are by a terrorist."

 I don't find this line of thought entirely spurious, but it is odd to hear it from a Bush supporter, since it undermines the entire basis behind the "war on terror." Let's see where the human potato counting argument takes us: If terrorism is so insignificant, then clearly we ought to be putting more resources into the "war on car accidents." I believe that with reasonable effort we could reduce fatalities by 3000/year, offsetting any annual terrorist act on the order of 9/11. We could do this with substantially less infringement on civil liberties. Heck, there's nothing in the constitution to stop us from making it a lot harder to get a driver's license at all, so if the goal were simply to reduce American risk of death or injury, then terrorism is just way down on the list of contributors.

It is more complicated than that, since terrorism has effects beyond the number of fatalities. That's by design (the intent being to cause terror). People will put up with a baseline of daily risk, and they will even bounce back from natural catastrophe. The reason is that the se deaths are seen as part of the normal chance you take in life. An act of terrorism has agency behind it, and therefore sounds as if it should be preventable, and that in a moral sense, it should have been prevented. The same goes for crime. That is why humans perceive these differently from other hazards.

A utilitarian argument could weigh the full impact of terrorism and balance it against the cost of fighting it in terms of reduced liberty, risk to those fighting it, and monetary cost. This would all figure into a rational counter-terror policy, which of course we don't have. If on ther other hand you buy into Bush's apparent view that anything goes when fighting terrorism, thenyou better believe that a death by terrorist action is a whole lot worse than some other kind of death.

The commentary was recorded in every venue going -- be it island hopping in the Pacific, the front near Buchanwald in Germany -- or all those coal mining hollows in West Virginia -- but when FDR died people -- even those who never voted for him, felt lost.  Yet the best dissembler the Presidency ever was was FDR.  Trust was earned here because he made people's lives better -- he led.  He spoke to a better vision.  But clear truth telling had not all that much to do with the mogic.  

During much of his first term, Ike had a little of that magic too.  Kennedy had it the first couple months, lost it over Bay of Pigs, but was getting it back in 1963.  It has nothing to do with strict standards of truth telling -- it has to do with projecting vision.  

To: agathena & HoppyCalif

Thank you for the 5s to offset the 1s.  It was my very own snarky  "demonstration" replete with chants.  Apparently, they didn't like it.