He's Got Some 'Splainin' To Do

So apparently Bush is going to try to interrupt prime-time TV again tonight to try to sell an increasingly skeptical public on the merits of the War in Iraq. The speech starts in about half an hour and will be coming from Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, where the Prez is sure to get an enthusiastic response. I'm sure that this is being done because the Administration is sensing a turning of the tide on this issue, with disapproval of the way the war is being conducted approaching 60% in most polls. That's about as low as its possible for his disapproval rates to go; this country is so polarized, and the Republicans have so effectively 'branded' (to use an advertising term) themselves to so much of the population, that about 35-40% percent of the country is too psychologically and emotionally tied to the man and what he stands for to even allow the notion into their minds that he might ever possibly in some parallel universe make a mistake. If he comes to the podium tonight wearing a Doctor Doom mask and announces that he has placed a giant laser in orbit and is holding the entire planet hostage, most of that 35-40% will shrug it's shoulders and say "hey, you know, September 11."

I don't exactly know what to expect tonight, but I'll make a few guesses. There will be much showcasing of patriotic imagery and clean-cut, enthusiastic military faces, thus further encouraging the ridiculous notion that if you disapprove of the way Bush is doing his job then you must hate America and the troops. There will be many references to September 11, even though there is zero link between the attacks of that day and the war in Iraq. There will be not even the slightest hint that anyone in the Administration has gotten anything wrong, from the predictions that we would be hailed as liberators over two years ago to last week's assessment from Dick Cheney that the insurgency is in it's final throes. And finally, it will work; large numbers of Americans will see the flags, look at those fresh, enthusiastic faces, and think to themselves "how could I be such a bastard, hating the troops like that?", thereby providing Bush a small but significant boost in popularity. And things in that part of the world will go on just as they have for the last two-plus years.