OK, I’ll live blog the damnfool speech. You’d better appreciate this.
He’s calling the maneuver a “new strategy.” The violence of Iraq overwhelmed the political games. He’s talking about a vicious cycle of sectarian violence that continues today. This is unacceptable.
“Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.” That’s supposed to be the money quote. “Where mistakes have been made” seems a bit weaselly to me.
Holy shit, he mentioned September 11. Stopit stopit stopit!!!
He’s saying that the Iraqis have a new plan — it’s not even our bleeping plan — and he’s claiming that experts (e.g., Barney and the White House goldfish) have reviewed the plan and say it will work. So it’s really the Iraqi plan, not our plan, and we’re just sending five brigades to be embedded in Iraqi units to help Iraiqis clear and support neighborhoods.
This time we’ll have the force levels we need to hold areas cleared of insurgents. No more whack-a-mole. Malaki has pledged sectarian violence will not be tolerated. Well, I feel better.
If the Iraq government doesn’t follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people. He really said that. I think Laura needs to sit him down for a long talk.
He’s wooden. No passion in this speech. He sounds as if he’s announcing the opening of a new supermarket.
He mentioned the Iraq Study Group, as if he’s really paying attention to it.
No one in America is still listening to this. Blah Blah Blah. There’s an episode from Season One of Rome on HBO I’m missing for this.
Our commanders believe we have an opportunity in Anbar Province to strike insurgents, or terrorists, or somebody.
OK, he’s mentioned Iran and Syria. Hmm.
Monotone droning. This is not a good performance. He’s not saying shit he hasn’t already said, so content is not particularly newsworthy.
“There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship.” So if we arrange one, will he go away?
On HBO, right now Julius Caesar is chasing Pompey Magnus around Greece. They had real wars in those days, buckaroos.
Oh, gawd, this is a bad speech. Booooring. Same old, same old.
It’s over. Deep breath.
He’s the postgame wrapup. Keith Olbermann says Bush mentioned Lieberman, which must have been while I was flipping to HBO. He also used the word “sacrifice” at some point, as British newspapers had predicted.
Here’s Dick Durbin, Senator from Illinois. Bush is ignoring the advice of his own generals. 20,000 too few to end the civil war, and to many to risk. We have paid a heavy price. We’ve given Iraq a lot, he says. Now in the fourth year of this war, it is time for Iraqis to stand and defend their own nation. They must know that every time they dial 911, we’re not going to send more soldiers. It’s time to begin the orderly redeployment of our troops.
Questions: Durbin used the word civil war with the president, he said.
Chris Matthews’s interpretation is that Bush is calling for a broadening of the war vis à vis Iran and Syria. I want to get a transcript and re-read that part.
Joe Scarborough says most of the Republicans will come back to support the President after the speech after his “clear and sober assessment” of the way forward. Those people are bought cheap.
Barack Obama speaks: The American people and troops have done everything asked of them. An additional 20,000 troops will not help. Obama says he will “actively oppose the president’s proposal.” We should engage in a dialogue with Iran and Syria. The President is saying the same stuff he’s been saying.
“He mentioned the Iraq Study Group, as if he’s really paying attention to it.”
Did he mention why the “surge” is the only one of the Iraq Study Group’s recommendations that was ever given even the slightest consideration by the White House?
POP QUIZ
Who is the author of liberty?
Swami: Emma Lazarus?
Is that a typo or a dig where you said: He’s calling the maneuver a “new strategy.†The violence of Iraq overwhelmed the political games.
Did you mean political gains?
Aww, y’all just joshin’. Everybody knows it’s Jay-sus.
It sure is swell that that nice ol’ Mr. al-Maliki is gonna do all those nice things about cracking down on the people he depends on to stay n power, using the Iraq security forces he doesn’t actually control. I can see why Mr. Bush thinks we’ll succeed by agreeing to help him out by putting more of our troops out in the neighborhoods with them.
If the mission is to help the Iraqis protect the local people, what do our boys do when it’s the local people doing the shooting at them? That’s kind of been our problem all along, hasn’t it, knowing who are the guys we’re there to protect?
Nice of him to finally define victory. Too bad it’s the creation of something as yet never achieved in the Arab world. Kind of a small goal, then, huh?
The mention of Lieberman seemed to be a deliberate slap at the Democratic Leadership — who sent that letter saying “surge” was a crock.
I was fixing chile relleno at the time so missed some of the details, but it seemed like he said he was putting together a “Congressional working group” — with Sen Lieberman and other Senators who share his view (McCain, Graham, who else?) — and he will meet with them regularly, and this will demonstrate his commitment to congressional involvement. Special, eh?
Did you mean political gains?
I don’t remember. “Games” works, though, don’t it?
Tim Russert is saying that this is Bush’s last chance. If there isn’t significant improvement in a short time, there will be a Republican stampede away from Bush.
bush is such a fumbducker!!!!!! tried to watch him but coud not keep my dinner down and watch that talking ass!!!!!
Folks, I was looking for the point of the speech.
The pitch for ‘bipartisan’ support included the suggestion that we should increase the size of the military. Congress has to authorize it! The surge can’t be maintained; we don’t have the troops!
Bush would send in 60K GIs tomorrow if he had them. Congress does not have to and must not agree to an increase in the size of the military without a FIXED timetable for withdrawl. That’s where Congress has leverage.
There was a surreal moment when Bush was reading the laundry list of legislation that the Iraq parliment will enact. Flip it around: suppose al Maliki had read in a speech to Iraq a list of what the American congress will enact. I don’t think so.
al Maliki can no more ensure what the Parlament there will do than Bush can compel our Congress to do. That fantasy (new legislation in Iraq) is the cornerstone of the plan. That’s going to be the basis for reconciliation! There’s your big disconnect from reality.
Maybe I am wrong and Sunis and Shiites will be sitting around the campfire singing kum by ya by this time next month.
Maha, your live blogging was much more interesting than watching it. I think you capture the essence perfectly. Thanks. Now, I’ll go back to my movie.
Gimme a barf bag! The Republican talking heads are claiming it’s obvious that the strategy in Iraq has kept the US safe because there have been no attacks on American soil.
Wow, what a dreadful performance. He reeked of defeat and deceit. He was like a deer in the headlights with his only animation being the movement of his head in sync with the words on the TelePrompter. A far cry from the high testosterone Mr. Bring- it -on who almost levitated himself with power and confidence not too long ago. Witnessing tonights speech was witnessing the last hurrah….He’s done and he is defeated! He played every card in his hand, 911, epic struggle for civilization,they’ll come and get us and the sky is falling…run for your lives if you won’t let me save you.
Let the hearings begin!!!!
http://www.auburnschools.org/ahs_band/metafiles/Entry_of_the_Gladiators_March_-_Fucik.ram
Maha, I have a comment up at The Carpetbagger Report concerning the portion of the speech dealing with Iran. I contains a link to the transcript at CBS.
Where were the succinct bullet points designed to convince a skeptical nation that Bush knows what he’s talking about? He appeared nervous, his attention elsewhere. Would you buy a used war from this man? Maybe you don’t have to buy a used war. Maybe we’ll get a shiny new one with Iran instead. The whole Iraq thing just seems to be a distraction from what’s really going on. No wonder he looked scared. Time to brush up on impeachment.
It used to be that if you took the responsibility for something and it was a disaster there were consequences. Under President Carter with his apologies for everything under the sun, and now President Bush, you can cavalierly accept responsibility or apologize but not have to suffer any adverse consequences. So mouthing such terms as “accepting responsibility†is sheer poppycock.
Of course, to show his true colors, which are vindictive meanness, Bush throws in the face of the Democrats the traitor Lieberman. Figure it, Lieberman is for almost all Democratic positions except when it comes to Iraq. Why the difference?
The scary part of the speech was the reference to Iran and Syria. On MSNBC both Tim Russett and Williams indicated that in an off-the-record performance earlier in the day by Bush he still believes that by invading Iraq we prevented the spread of WMDs. Apparently he thought Saddam would cooperate with Iran in building nukes. But they both suggested Bush truly believes the Iraq war was justified. They suggest that Bush now places the blame on Iran for our failure there and is intent on taking revenge against it. Thus an additional carrier force is being sent there to interdict materials coming into Iraq from Iran. That means we invade Iran – initially like we are doing in Somalia by using C131 warships to attack ground groups.
Bush has come to believe that the way out of Baghdad is through Tehran. Perhaps that is why he added in the need to increase the numbers in our Army and Marines.
maha suffers so we don’t have to. Me, I was reading an A.S. Byatt novel while Zombie Dubya was talking his mindnumbing trash. (I likes my fiction intelligent, see.)
I’m remembering a really awful speech Jimmy Carter made, midway through his term, which turned out (pre-Hostage Crisis) to be the jumped shark of his presidency– the night the nation decided he couldn’t fix things. I felt sad and worried then (and hell, I was 21 or 22 at the time, too glib and foolish to worry about much of anything). Tonight I feel… relieved and elated. Kind of “Surge this, asshole.”
“Surge this, asshole.â€
Succinct.
The opportunity in anbar will be to catch the balloon. If Baghdad is squeezed watch the sectarian killing ballon to Samara, Baqouba, Diyala province and especially Al Anbar.
Maha,
I did not watch the speech, but when old Georgy boy say’s “mistakes lie with me”, or something like that. Maybe we should give him one more chance? One more chance to completely destroy our country, one more chance to riddle our land with hate, one more chance to turn us against ourselves. Please Maha, give him one more chance. (It will only take 14 months), so he can run out the clock, and leave the fools with his problem. He is the commander in chief; he should be afforded at least that.
No youtube, shut down? why? note the time:
first, thank you for watching it so I didn’t have to.
There’s a TV commercial on nowadays with a man flipping an electrical switch back and forth in his garage, while he calls over to his wife who’s sitting in the kitchen, reading a magazine or something.
Man: On? Or off? Are you looking?
Wife: Yes.
Man: On, or off? Are you even looking?
Wife: Yes, of course.(and of course, she isn’t.)
I paraphrase. Whenever I see Junior on teevee giving a speech with that over-earnest, furrowed-brow look on his face, I picture him practicing his big speech in the mirror while Laura is in the next room, and he calls out to her, to ask her if he looks sincere, and she humors him while not looking, just like the lady in the commercial. I suppose the lady next door whose garage door keeps slamming open and close on her hood is either:
the American people, or
the soldiers in Iraq, or
the people we have to kill for Junior.
Take your pick. I don’t even remember what product they’re selling in the ad, and I suppose that could be emblematic of the situation in Iraq too.
Surreal…….teenager wrecks the family car, damages its steering mechanism……..spiels dramatic nonsense to cover up the disaster……..refuses to hand over the car keys or examine the damage………insists that the family must ride along on another jaunt in that damaged vehicle, with him in the driver’s seat……. Folks, this teenie Bush ego is the only thing that matters to him. So get into the car, throw maturity and caution to the wind, give the teenie another chance.
“He’s wooden. No passion in this speech. He sounds as if he’s announcing the opening of a new supermarket.”
He had the same wide-eyed near frozen look as during the SOTU 2003. Now he’s planning to intercept what he says are Iranian/Syrian shipments which is nothing but a prelude to expanding the war. Can’t anyone just take him back to Crawford so he can’t cause any more damage and entice the Vice for a long stay at a hunting lodge–now if not sooner?
“Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.†That’s supposed to be the money quote. “Where mistakes have been made†seems a bit weaselly to me.
This is classic passive voice construction, and politicians have been using it in ever-increasing numbers since Ronald Reagan uttered the very same phrase in connection to Iran-Contra.
The most remarkable thing about this sentence is that Bush gets to have it both ways. While the person (or persons) who caused the mistakes is never identified, the individual assuming “responsibility” for the unattributed mistakes is. So, Bush lets himself off the hook for fouling up, but then turns right around and accepts the credit for addressing the blunder.
bobzyouruncle: “The most remarkable thing about this sentence is that Bush gets to have it both ways.”
Well, not with readers of Mahablog anyway. I wonder what percentage of the population actually falls for this “mistakes were made” crap.
In addition to seeing our dear leader as a man big enough to take “responsibility” for the “mistakes” of others, we’re all supposed to say: “Golly, anyone can make a mistake. Lied us into an unnecessary war. Ooopsie-daisy! Tens of thousands of American soldiers maimed or killed and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians maimed or killed. Whoops! Hundreds of BILLIONS of tax dollars wasted and/or stolen. Durn the luck! But, what-the-hey, no need to get angry about a few silly little ‘mistakes.’ Heck, coulda happened to anyone. Let’s just all forgive and forget and focus on the future.”
I hope that at least seventy percent or so of the American public is not that stupid.