The Gist

Still Running on 9/11

Bush's speech tonight was weak and pathetic, filled with distortions and more of the same. The comparisons to 9/11 only anger people more and more as Osama bin Laden keeps putting out videos and reminding everyone that they never got him. And now Bush is saying we may be in Iraq well past his presidency, which is a a complete bait-and-switch from his "victory" speeches of the past.

Given that Americans are numb to the message -- and that's evident in the polls that show most Americans believe the war is a failure -- and that Bush is now the administration's own worst enemy when it comes to the war, you have to wonder why Bush even gave a speech in prime time. They'd rolled out General Patreus -- and the polls showed people trusted the generals more than Bush, no matter that Patreus is a tool of the administration -- and you would think that they'd want Patreus's impression to be the last one. But Bush is so determined to try to turn his numbers around, and the administration so robotically inclined to use 9/11 year after year, that he just couldn't stay away from the cameras. He wanted to be back on TV with a special address in prime time around the anniversary (which was also timed with Petreus's testimony) in order to use it for his purposes. Not surprisingly, he made all the 9/11 connections once again:

"If we were to be driven out of Iraq, extremists of all strains would be emboldened. Al Qaeda could gain new recruits and new sanctuaries. Iran would benefit from the chaos and would be encouraged in its efforts to gain nuclear weapons and dominate the region. Extremists could control a key part of the global energy supply. Iraq could face a humanitarian nightmare. Democracy movements would be violently reversed. We would leave our children to face a far more dangerous world. And as we saw on September the 11th, 2001, those dangers can reach our cities and kill our people."

But most people know by now that all of those things he ticked off have already happened. One can only speculate that the White House believes that with the slim majority the Democrats have Bush can say anything and the Democrats will just go along. The Republican presidential candidates, however, while running on the sick Giuliani-inpsired 9/11 nostalgia and on General Petreus's testimony, could not have been happy that Bush's face was once again on the screen pushing this disaster that his party owns lock, stock and barrel.