(The above illustration is from Isaiah's latest The World Today Just Nuts.)
Bully Boy spoke on Wednesday. The press was enthralled.
Bully's public speaking, like Bully's first steps, fill the press with parental pride & joy. (And why shouldn't they feel that way? Their war on Al Gore helped him land in the oval office to begin with.) Which must be why the speech was "news" before it was even delivered.
Can't you see the excited faces of the press? "Oh, Bully Boy's about to take a step. Come on, Bully, you can do it. Yes, you can. Who's the big boy? Come on, Bully."
Like most young children, Bully Boy only knows a few words. So he repeats them a lot.
Apparently the catch phrase was supposed to be "Stay the course." Doesn't even have the "zing" required for a Wendy's commerical but proud parents overlook that.
This stay the course nonsense has been addressed and dealt with many times over. But the press must have been giving Bully his first bath (tongue bath?) and missed it. (See this if you're confused as to the fallacy of "stay the course.")
And of course, with the speech, you got the banner. They do love their banners in this White House. This banner read "Plan For Victory." The souvenier booklet accompanying it, National Stragtegy for Victory in Iraq, was woefully short on anything substanative or, in fact, new. As Amy Poehler noted on Saturday Night Live, at thirty-five pages, the big plan's about a third of the length of a Nancy Drew mystery.
While The New York Times front pages Bully Speaks! with David E. Sanger's "Bush Gives Plan For Iraq Victory And Withdrawal," we think, across the Atlantic, The Independent came a little closer to the truth with Rupert Cornwell's "Bush accused of 'recycling tired rhetoric.'"
"I will settle for nothing less than complete victory" joins the Bully Boy boasts beside the claim to get Osama bin Laden "dead or alive," "bring it on," "major operations in Iraq have ended" and a host of others. It's meaningless. Even Bully Boy looked too wiped out to believe it Wednesday.
(Or maybe that was just the heavy pancake makeup. Did he have another fall off the bicycle?)
Empty words designed to confuse and distort reality.
Just more of the usual Operation Happy Talk. As Scott Shane notes in The New York Times, Bully Boy's got a new nanny. His name is Peter D. Feaver and he's convinced that Bully Boy can turn it around.
It?
No, not the occupation. He's not concerned about that. Which makes him the perfect nanny for Bully Boy. What can be turned around is, according to Feaver, public opinion!
Body counts they don't do. Polling they do religiously.
If Bully Boy will just speak resolutely (and occassionally coherently?), the public will be back on board the war bus faster than Bill O'Lielly can add yet another name to his enemies list.
We don't know what's scarier -- that some in the adminstration believe this nonsense or that we're all footing the bill for Peter D. Feaver's salary?
With the Pentagon having been forced to admit that made up stories (more Operation Happy Talk) were planted in the Iraqi press, you'd think at some point, Bully Boy would realize that he can only tell whoppers for so long.
But damned if he isn't determined to insist everything's going great while everyone in the country can smell the stink wafting out of his nappy.
2127 is the official count for American military deaths in Iraq. In case anyone's forgotten. 15,568 is the Defense Department's count for wounded in action.
Empty words, no matter how loudly boasted, don't bring back the dead. They don't turn an illegal war into a legal one. They don't change the lies that led us to war into truths.
All it means is that Bully Boy got a new nanny and that the press continues to "Ooooh" and "Aaah" his every step through early childhood development while the nation desperately needs a leader.
[This editorial was written by The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim, Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man, C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review, Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills), Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz and Wally of The Daily Jot.]