Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Triumph of the Will Since every Bush speech on Iraq is a re-run of every other Bush speech, one is reduced to pointing out what sort of clever graphic background Spinmeister Rove has come up with ("Plan for Victory" in today's speech) and counting the endless repetition of words and phrases: "Change" - 6 times (Who says Bush is inflexible and dogmatic?) "Artificial" - 6 times (as in "artificial timetable for withdrawing our troops") "Mission" - 15 times (but remember, it's not a crusade) "Coalition" - 21 times (a coalition of one) "Freedom" - 22 times (especially for those Iraqi civilians who've been liberated from their lives) And the grand prize winner, the word "will," was uttered a total of 65 times, as in "I will settle for nothing less than complete victory." Rest assured that whatever should happen will happen.  The Emperor Bush has so ordered.   Or, as he put it in a slightly different context, "America's will is strong."  So if US troops wind up withdrawing because of overwhelming public pressure and chaos ensues, Bush will blame it all on the American citizenry. The speech included the usual analogies to WWII and the Cold War, along with claims that victory in Iraq "will inspire democratic reformers from Damascus to Tehran. . . " (especially the undemocratic Iranian clerics who are allied with the new Shiite-dominated government of Iraq) and that old favorite, ". . . as the Iraqi security forces stand up, coalition forces can stand down." There was, however, one memorable new description: "The enemy in Iraq is a combination of rejectionists, Saddamists and terrorists." Bush closed his speech with ". . . May God continue to bless the United States of America."  You can bet he will -- unless of course he turns out to be a rejectionist. 2:43:54 PM    comment []