The White House billed last night’s speech as a non-political event, but even if they were sincere in hopes of avoiding politics it is impossible to ignore the political implications of any Presidential public statement this close to such an important election. In 2004 George Bush won reelection largely by managing to demonize John Kerry to keep the election from becoming a referendum on his first term. Republicans are attempting to repeat this strategy in Congressional races, but with the increased public awareness of the Republicans’ inability to govern post-Katrina it is not clear whether they will succeed this time.
The Washington Post analyzes the election as Bush attempting to “win over a war-weary nation.” Even those who initially supported his policy question if Bush can convince the country at this point:
“The power of his rhetoric is in marked decline, and that’s no reflection on the quality of what he says, which is still very high,” said Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a neoconservative scholar who has been sympathetic to Bush’s anti-terrorism policies. “There’s a desire in the country for more deeds, not more words. . . . We are losing a war right now, and there is no way to get around that.”
One reason Bush will have difficulty winning over the nation is that he is losing credibility. Fewer people accept his pre-war arguments over either WMD or a tie between Saddam and 9/11. Even Bush has been forced to back away from this argument. The Guardian concentrated their coverage on the admission that Saddam was not responsible for 9/11:
George Bush last night admitted that Saddam Hussein had no hand in the 9/11 terror attacks, but he asked Americans to support a war in Iraq that he said was the defining struggle of our age.
On a day of sorrow and remembrance, beginning with a moment of silence at Ground Zero and ending in a prime time TV address from the Oval Office, Mr Bush tried to steel Americans for the long war ahead against al-Qaida which he described as an epochal struggle.
His speech was also focused on November’s congressional elections where the Republicans face a groundswell of discontent about the war in Iraq.
The president conceded some crucial ideological ground, formally disavowing the neo-conservative accusation that Saddam had played a role in the attacks on September 11 2001. But he was unapologetic about the decision to invade Iraq.
I have often wondered how so many true Americans could be so blinded by one individual, i.e. Mr. Bush. At least he is finally admitting some of the chaos he has thrown us into, though I hope and pray it is too late for people to be duped by him again. I also hope that most, if not all Americans, caught what he said in regards to this war we are still in, that it will be over when either we or they win, meaning the radicals who want us dead. It is a shame that he is still unwilling to say he made one of the biggest boo-boos in our countries history by invading Iraq, and “staying the course” as he means it, is just not enough.
For some reason, anyone who is elected into any office just doesn’t get that fact that once they are in office, they represent all Americans, not just one party or the other party. Somehow, that piece of it gets lost in whatever translation once they “win”.
Bush losing his credibility? He had none with me when he decided to invade another country without the support of most nations in this world, who would also be affected by this decision. But who am I, just an American citizen who happened to spend 10 years active duty in the US military and happened to hear him say (when he was trying to convince us to go to war with Iraq), “besides, he tried to kill my Daddy!” That one moment in time made me call him every name in the book (the not so nice ones), disgusted me that he would personalize this invasion which would affect every one of us in this country, and made me think immediately of one word, impeachment. But if that happened who would we be left with.
Hopefully, American Citizens who have the right to stand united together, will get the picture, dismiss any “flip-flop” rhetoric or any other means of character attacks as the BS that it is, and will once again unite as one Nation of “We the people” to vote into all public offices those who will not falter to be there “For the people” and not “For the corporations” who have been doing their best to sell us out to the highest bidder. We cannot have a utopian society, far left or far right. We must become one nation again, united together, with tolerance, diversity and understanding. We cannot expect to succeed with a “my way or the highway” mentality, and we can and should expect to be allowed in this country to have our differences, accept that these differences can and will exist, that they in no way inhibit each one of us from having our own core values that we, individually, have the right as citizens to have, and as a free and democratic nation we must tolerate these differences, because that is what has made this country great and unique in the past, and what should continue to make this country, our country, great and unique in the future.
SIDE NOTE, SEPARATE ISSUE: I recently had to outsource myself to Puerto Rico to be able to troubleshoot and repair PC boards again, as I had done here in the USA before my work was outsourced offshore. While there, I watched protest marches on the news programs of illegal immigrants, marching in our cities for their rights. I wanted so much to participate in a march of American Citizens exclaiming, “What rights?” Then, I found out they have more rights than I do. Imagine how I felt then. Due to outsourcing of our jobs, I lost my home, lost so much, then, to do the work I love to do, had to outsource myself out of my country. People have been mistaking illegal immigrants with legal immigration for too long. Please wake up and see the difference. People in these “marches of protest” against, in my view, American citizens, say over and over that we are a nation of immigrants. Maybe we were, at one point in time, but we are not anymore. I am not an immigrant, I am an American, born and raised in the USA. Hhhhmmmm…. Look at it a different way, if you can. What did our ancestors who did immigrate here do to the American Natives when they came here from other countries, looking for a better life? Did we not learn anything from that? Something to think about……
Chrystal,
Obviously when I’m speaking of loss of credibility, I’m referring to the general public, not those of us who distrusted Bush on Iraq from the start.
Bush’s decision to govern from the far right, despite claims of being a uniter, not a divider, was unfortunate for the entire country.
It sounds like in your case the problem isn’t immigration. I doubt that they are hiring immigrants to repair PC boards in place of Americans. The problem sounds more one of American companies looking for cheaper labor elsewhere. (While Puerto Rico is technically part of the US as a territory, I get the impression from your post that you do not feel like part of the US there, and I assume that the same economic considerations which apply to cheaper foreign labor also apply there).