Tuesday, August 22, 2006

The Test Drive

The Emperor held a press conference yesterday (announced just two hours before it was scheduled to occur) to try out a new campaign theme. It turns out that the theme wasn't actually new, just repainted to cover a few of the dings and dents. From the NY Times:

“These are challenging times, and they’re difficult times, and they’re straining the psyche of our country,” Mr. Bush said in an hourlong news conference. “Nobody wants to turn on their TV on a daily basis and see havoc wrought by terrorists.”

...it was the president as political strategist whom television viewers got a glimpse of Monday, with Mr. Bush laying out what he believed Republicans should focus on this election year and rehearsing an argument that used Iraq as a foil, by contending that the early withdrawal advocated by some Democrats would embolden terrorists everywhere.

... When Mr. Bush referred to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on Monday in reference to a question about Iraq, a reporter pressed him, “What did Iraq have to do with that?”

“Nothing,” Mr. Bush responded somewhat testily, adding, “Nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack.”
[Emphasis added]

The Iraq War and the debacle it turned out to be has strained more than Americans' psyches. Their pocketbooks, for example, have reached the breaking point, yet the president said nothing about the billions that continue to be flushed away in what now appears to be a face saving exercise. Instead, he once again managed to link the war in Iraq to terrorism by suggesting that withdrawal would "embolden terrorists everywhere," thereby straining the credulity of sentient beings everywhere.

That shiny new model put on display turned out to be the same junker he's been driving for more than five years. It's clear he intends to keep driving it until at least early 2009.

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