1115.org

I had the good sense not to actually listen to Bush’s speech yesterday. Here are some of the spontaneous comments that came to my lips as I read the text later. (Everything that sprang unbidden to my lips is not suitable for a family blog.)

As (Operation Iraqi Freedom) unfolded, tens and thousands of our troops poured across the Iraqi border to liberate the Iraqi people and remove a regime that threatened free nations.

Oh yeah? Name just one, buddy.

Removing Saddam Hussein from power was the right decision — and this is a fight America can and must win.

And how the hell we do that, you’ll just leave to the next president?

The men and women who crossed into Iraq five years ago removed a tyrant, liberated a country, and rescued millions from unspeakable horrors.

The horrors of the Shia-Sunni carnage you unleashed in Iraq are speakable, are they? (Follow-up: how come you have never spoken about them, then?)

Because we acted, Saddam Hussein no longer fills fields with the remains of innocent men, women and children.

No, the evil henchmen of the men we put in power filled the morgues instead with the remains of innocent men, women and children. That’s progress, and we’re proud of it, right?

Because we acted, the world is better and United States of America is safer.

Do even Laura and Barney buy that any more, dude?

General David Petraeus took command with a new mission: Work with Iraqi forces to protect the Iraqi people, pressure [sic] the enemy into strongholds, and deny the terrorists sanctuary anywhere in the country. And that is precisely what we have done.

And what was the old mission again? We were working against the Iraqi forces? Or against the Iraqi people?

So now terrorists have no sanctuary anywhere in the country? There are no terrorists left in Iraq? That’s “Mission Accomplished!” all over again, isn’t it?

By defeating al Qaeda in Iraq, we will show the world that al Qaeda is the weak horse. (Applause.) We will show that men and women who love liberty can defeat the terrorists.

“Will show” is wonderful, sir. Because all we have shown so far — but of course, past performance is no indicator of future performance — is that even when the leader of the most powerful nation in the world insists on pouring billions of dollars a week into the effort, in five years we have not come close to wiping out a few thousand al-Qaeda terrorists from Iraq.

An emboldened al Qaeda with access to Iraq’s oil resources could pursue its ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction to attack America and other free nations.

I’ll subcontract this one, to the White House press corps reporter who asked La Bimberino yesterday:

I don’t understand how a fragmented, clandestine, non-Iraqi terrorist organization could produce and sell Iraqi oil. … So the Iraqis would let a foreign terrorist organization take over their oil?

Dana Perino, in her inimitable way, replied that “what you’re suggesting is not what the president said.” No, of course not, Dana.

Our troops on the front lines understand what is at stake. They know that the mission in Iraq has been difficult and has been trying for our nation…

Because they know the sacrifices you have repeatedly called on Americans to make?

When Americans like Spanky Gibson serve on our side, the enemy in Iraq doesn’t got a chance.

He really said it. It’s in the official White House transcript. Without even a “sic”, which they do stick in whenever they think it’s warranted.

You know what you clean forgot to mention, sir?

More than two-thirds of Iraqis believe US-led coalition forces should leave, according to a poll conducted for British television ahead of the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion. The ORB/Channel 4 News survey suggested that 70 percent thought multinational forces should withdraw.