Dubya seemed particularly subdued this evening, as well as very careful in how he spoke in his prepared statement.
I thought he gave a remarkably calm, earnest, and even powerful, indictment of the Saddam Hussein’s defiance of 1441, and the case for war. And I say that as one who has never been impressed by Bush’s speaking style.
Something else I saw — some glimpses of the folksy, comfortable, personable Dubya that I’ve heard of, who’s much better in small groups, or one-on-one, than at formal speechmaking. Interesting. Makes me wonder if he’d be better off doing more press conferences and fewer speeches.
There was also anger there, anger that crept out at times, sometimes a bit flip, sometimes a bit I’ve-said-all-this-before-guys. I can’t say as I blame him, but I wonder whether part of what I was seeing, both the quiet and the anger, are a sign of a very tired man, which is worrisome, perhaps, but might belie the folks who think Dubya is just carelessly traipsing his way off to war and empire.
Or maybe not. I suspect that, as with Clinton, when it comes to Dubya, folks will see what they are expecting to see.
Well said.
I felt like he was mirroring what I’ve been feeling for a long time. Kind of a, “Hello??? It’s been 12 years people… let’s stop talking ‘rush’ here!”
🙂
He’s not perfect, but damnit… I support my President.
At least when it comes to the impending war, yeah, me, too.
I understand the “it’s been 12 years” idea. But that begs the question, what did he do in the last 8 months to warrant “Absolutely Most Evil And Dangerous Human Being On The Planet” status? What changed? What aspect of his threat has so dramatically escalated? Even if we accept the new “pre-emptive strike” foreign policy, what prompted it in Saddam’s case?
It’s possible there’s information we don’t have or can’t have on the subject, but let’s put that aside.
Note that the idea of using force to enforce compliance isn’t new with Bush. Clinton made at least noises of the same sort, and lobbed some bombs and cruise missiles at Iraq on various occasions.
Part of what may have changed is just focus on the part of the Bush administration, which came in with sort of an isolationist point of view. 9/11 changed that, and even if a direct tie between Iraq and al-Qa’eda (and the 9/11 attacks) has never been adequately spelled out, Iraq remains a major part of the problems in the Middle East, and the one best positioned to be dealt with.
It’s also important to realize that, pre-9/11 (and pre-US mobilization against Iraq, which led to pressure that’s led to at token compliance), not only was Iraq doing everything it could to get around the sanctions regime, but there was increasing pressure from … well, the usual suspects, France, Germany and Russia, possibly China, to eliminate the sanctions altogether. It may well be that there was simply a recognition that if we didn’t bring this to a conclusion, it was going to be concluded in some other much less desirable fashion.
And part of it may just be “enough is enough.” When my daughter misbehaves, any one, single thing she does may not be enough to warrent a flick on the hand or a time-out, but the cumulative “straws on the camel’s back” finally leads to my taking action. Ditto with the constant pattern of misbehavior on Iraq’s part — intentionally so. Iraq has constantly pushed the envelope of what’s been forbidden to them, trying to see what they can get away with. Cumulative patterns of behavior of that sort need to be dealt with, too.