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Backdrops
The President should drop the backdrop and level with us.
Once again, the President's men will choreograph an event to make it easier for him not to tell us the truth. The President will use Fort Bragg as a backdrop for his Iraq speech tonight. More than two years after the landing on the Lincoln, they still use photo ops to obfuscate reality. Tonight, our brave soldiers will serve to bolster his standing. On the Lincoln, the President played dress-up to convey the image of a conquering hero.
What is wrong with an Oval Office Address? If he is frank and candid with the American people, the setting shouldn't matter. But, this President needs some extra help at this critical time. His credibility is plummeting and many of the American people are souring on the occupation.
We largely already know what to expect from the President tonight. Stay the course. The fight is hard. We will prevail.
Don't expect to be surprised. There will be no accountability for the mistakes that have been made. Rummy is safe - leave no incompetent Secretary of Defense behind. Certainly there will be no mention of the British do ents about the failure to prepare for the occupation
"I think there is a real risk that the administration underestimates the difficulties," David Manning, Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote to the prime minister on March 14, 2002, after he returned from meetings with Condoleezza Rice, then Bush's national security adviser, and her staff. "They may agree that failure isn't an option, but this does not mean they will necessarily avoid it."
Nor should we expect the President to acknowledge the demands of McCain, Biden and others for the need for more troops. Jesus will return before the President suggests using some of his tax cuts to enlarge the military instead of fattening the pockets of his contributors. And this President has no credibility to call for national unity as his chief advisor is virtually questioning the patriotism of his political opponents.
Imagine a backdrop of corporate CEO's as the President calls for a tax on multi-million dollar compensation packages to help pay for the war effort. Picture a backdrop of high-roller K Street lobbyists as the President proposes a lobbying registration fee to finance the armoring of military vehicles.
Returning to planet earth, the Moose recalls that the President never advocates sacrifice except from the courageous troops and their families. Expect more of the same from this President. He is incapable of political imagination - of reaching beyond the confines of his base-polarizing framework. Tonight, he will present himself as the Commander in Chief before his troops. A leader with his army.
But President Bush does not have the capacity to articulate a simple message of candor and unity to a civilian population that is divided and increasingly distrustful of his words. Or maybe he will surprise us all.
But then again, maybe not.
The Moose hits the nail on the head. The president is too weak politically to deliver this speech from the oval office by himself. He needs our soldiers as a backdrop much like Kim Il Jong gives his speeches in front of his army.
Level with us? You think the public is ready to hear that we are using Iraq as bait to draw in radical islamists and kill them? Don't trust these polls. No one that voted for him has changed there minds. The polls are asking the same ing people that didn't like Bush all these years... nothings changed...
Just a newer effort buy Ted Chivas Regal Kennedy to turn it into a Nam like failure.
Pussies crying louder...
Bush is a lame duck already. Social Security and Iraq are weighing on his effectiveness like lead anchor around his neck.
Yes, pay no heed to the reasons why the Republicans sprung to power and the Democrats fell down. They miraculously disappeared overnight, so keep on the same course as you were before. Make no attempt to change the dynamics of your party other than more name-calling.
You should go back and read my earlier post en led The Republican Nemisis. Democrats aren't any different than Republicans when it comes to national defense and fighting this war on terra. Republicans have just mastered the technique of marketing their views better than progressives - namely they lie better.Yes, pay no heed to the reasons why the Republicans sprung to power and the Democrats fell down. They miraculously disappeared overnight, so keep on the same course as you were before. Make no attempt to change the dynamics of your party other than more name-calling.
I'm shocked at how conceited some of the righties are around here. Bush is a two-term President only by a matter of 538 votes in Florida in 2000 -- IIRC, he didn't even win the popular vote in 2000. Sure, he won the Presidential election in 2004, but I'm not sure that even that victory would suggest that the recent polling data, showing dropping approval and credibility ratings for the WH, is somehow incorrect. It seems to me that in 2004, Bush managed to win some swing votes from unattached moderates and to motivate a greater portion of his own base. The polling data would seem, in a general sense, to suggest that Bush is quickly losing whatever moderate support he had gained.
While the GOP wishes to make it look like the Democrats hopes for ever winning the White House again are futile, the reality of American politics is hardly as settled.
It would be nice if this Administration would level with the American people, rather than flip-flopping on its own rhetoric and trying to make silk purses out of the sow's ears that Iraq and the as-yet-unrequited search for Bin Laden have become.
It's all about photo-opts for this administration - no matter the price
A little boy reacts as other wellwishers brave the powerful blast of rotor wash from Marine One when U.S. President George W. Bush took off from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, June 28, 2005. President Bush will try to shore up wavering support for the Iraq war on the first anniversary of Iraq's sovereignty, with an address to the nation on Tuesday night from the military base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, telling Americans it is essential to keep fighting to stabilize Iraq despite the prospect of more bloodshed. REUTERS/Jason Reed
oh i love this modern world
the only reason to get austin chronicles actually
sparky the republican penguin if my fav
Well said FWDT. A new controversy is arising from W's latest Fort Bragg speech...
NY TimesWASHINGTON, June 29 - So what happened to the applause?
When President Bush visits military bases, he invariably receives a foot-stomping, loud ovation at every applause line. At bases like Fort Bragg - the backdrop for his Tuesday night speech on Iraq - the clapping is often interspersed with calls of "Hoo-ah," the military's all-purpose, spirited response to, well, almost anything.
So the silence during his speech was more than a little noticeable, both on television and in the hall. 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.
*snip*
After two presidential campaigns, Mr. Bush has finely tuned his sense of timing for cueing applause, especially when it comes to his most oft-expressed declarations of resolve to face down terrorists. But when the crowd did not respond on Tuesday , he seemed to speed up his delivery a bit. Then, toward the end of the 28-minute speech, there was an outbreak of clapping when Mr. Bush said, "We will stay in the fight until the fight is done."
Terry Moran, an ABC News White House correspondent, said on the air on Tuesday night that the first to clap appeared to be a woman who works for the White House, arranging events. Some other reporters had the same account, but Captain Earnhardt and others in the back of the room say the applause was started by a group of officers.
The WH had allotted 40 minutes for W's remarks before troops at Fort Bragg, but a lack of applause, whatever the cause, reduced the speech down to 28 minutes...
NPRStill, the White House had allotted 40 minutes for the remarks. Without the applause that may have been anticipated, Mr. Bush wrapped up in just 28 minutes.
Whether the mood of the evening was one that the White House planned or one it encountered, it underscored the position in which Mr. Bush finds himself.
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