I swear I'm not inherently anti-Bush, but...

...the more he talks, it seems, the worse it gets. And this President has some of the finest speechwriters money can buy. Remember his address to the Nation after the attacks on 9/11? If they gave out Academy Awards for Presidential speeches, that one would have been sure to bring George the Oscar.

In stunning contrast, look at some of his words from his speech given today(Yahoo! News - Bush Marks First Anniversary of Iraq War), on the one-year anniversary of the start of the Iraq War:

"It is the interest of every country and the duty of every government to fight and destroy this threat to our people," the president said.

Now, is he REALLY saying that every other country has a duty to protect the American people? Isn't that what he means by "our people"? Or do his speechwriters not care about proper grammar? Damn, put the period after "threat" and call it a sentence.

Or how about this obfuscating gem:

"There is no neutral ground...no neutral ground...in the fight between civilization and terror, because there is no neutral ground between good and evil, freedom and slavery, and life and death," Bush said.

Since when was the so-called "war on terror" a "fight between civilization and terror"? Since when is warfare "civil"? And since it's apparently such an important term, what the heck does he mean by "neutral ground" anyway? Isn't he basically saying "if you ain't with us, you're against us?" Hell, he already said THAT a year ago...back when he was insisting that we were in imminent danger from Hussein's WMDs.

I guess he's saying "you're either civilized, or a terrorist"; "you're either good or evil"; one can only be free or enslaved. One can only be either alive or dead. Well that last one I can agree with, but there are certainly shades of gray for the other examples. Let's take a Boeing 757 for instance; it can be both good and evil, depending on who's doing the flying, right?

It may seem that I'm nitpicking the President's figures of speech, but hey, my original point is that he has the best screenwriters in the world on his payroll, and THIS is the best they can do?

Finally, how about this conundrum:

"The war on terror is not a figure of speech," he said. "It is an inescapable calling of our generation."

What the hell...? You mean this is an actual War? Well then, what are the objectives of this "War"? About a year ago, Bush said his intention was to rid the world of evil. No one in their right mind would set, and expect to achieve, such an absurd objective. If the presence of evil is good enough for God, who are we to try to eliminate it? He couldn't possibly be serious, could he?

In this "War", who and where are the combatants? How will we know if we are, in fact, achieving our objectives? These major questions have NEVER been addressed in any meaningful public forum or document. Someone must know the answers to these questions, right?

Look, as long as this administration continues to sell us an unwinnable war, they will also continue to resort to rhetoric like that sentence. And now he asserts that this "war" is "inescapable". Bush and his speechwriters must take their lines from the George Orwell guidebook to mass hypnotism. They believe that if they say it long enough, it will eventually be believed by the masses.

If we don't bounce this clown in November, we deserve him.

More later...
Paul