Friday, July 08, 2005

My resolve can beat up your resolve The text of Bush's remarks on the London bombings, delivered at the G8 conference, was published today by the Kansas City Star, the flagship paper of a state that, like Bush, thinks "the jury is still out" on evolution. Bush's statement was quite short, so it was a triumph of speechwriting that enabled him to cram in all the key buzzwords, such as "resolve".  Take, for example, this passage: The war on terror continues.  I was most impressed by the resolve of all the leaders in the room. Their resolve is as strong as my resolve. Sounds like some sort of household cleaner -- the new and improved war on terror, now with Resolve. Let's see what kind of resolve the terrorists have. 12:41:55 PM

Stuff Happened On the night before the London bombings, I went to see David Hare's new play "Stuff Happens."  It's not up to Hare's best work, but then, it's very difficult to dramatize current events. Keith Carradine as Bush was mediocre, a bit too folksy, closer to Will Rogers than Bush, but the actors playing Cheney and Rumsfeld, the former scowling and sneering, the latter smug and squinting.  The actors portraying Colin Powell and Condominium Rice were fine too. But the standout in the cast was Julian Sands as Tony Blair.  After seeing Blair's post-attack speech on TV, I decided I prefer the phony Blair to the real one.  But then, many Britons find the real one phony as well, which is why they drastically shrunk his parliamentary majority in the recent election. 11:20:26 AM