President George W. Bush addressed the nation in a prime time televised speech from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The reason we mention this is that apparently most Americans were completely unaware of it. Mr. Bush garnered the lowest audience of any speech of his presidency, with total viewer ship coming in at around twenty three million, comprised of mostly wheelchair bound Republicans hoping to hear that Mr. Bush was reversing his stance on stem cell research.
It was equally unclear whether or not anyone was actually in the room with Mr. Bush as he spoke. Military officials swore that more than seven hundred military personnel were listening to the speech, but except for a few cut away shots of the audience that could have easily been dubbed and one small spattering of applause during the twenty eight minutes that the President spoke, the room may as well been empty.
The aim of the speech was to reassure Americans that the Administration did indeed have a plan for the occupation of Iraq. While no plan was actually offered, Mr. Bush did seem to think there was one, which was nice. Unfortunately, some catch phrases that the President offered ( "Stay the course...head for those rocks" and " The more innocent Iraqi's that die, the safer Americans will be.") seemed to fall a bit short.
While the most common response among those who got stuck watching the speech was "Who is that funny little man and what in the world is he talking about?" there was one bright point that was made; namely, that in the United States truly anyone can get to be President, regardless of intellect, a grasp of reality or real vision. This offered hope for mothers throughout the nation that even their dopey little kids can make it in politics, given a few million dollars and close ties with the ruling House of Saud.
In a way though, the lack of any coherent plan is oddly comforting to this observer. The last thing that is needed during these hot and sultry summer days is to try and wrap ones mind around any new ideas that George Bush may come up with, especially ones that may be reasonable or cogent. It would be just too much to grasp for this poor commentator.
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