Perhaps he is going to ask America to be a little more like Britney Spears:
What the hell, squeeg? Not a mistake – a joke. A joke predicated on the contrast between the thoughtful and serious tone of your post and the mostly absurd and flippant posts that preceeded it. Certainly not dismissive, insulting, or mean-spirited.
The conceit being that reasoned commentary is far enough removed from the general tone of the thread so as to be incomprehensible to its participants, who might look at it and instead see the sort of absurdist speculation that they were expecting.
I have no idea where you got the idea that you were being derided – if anything, it was closer to a self-deprecating joke than anything else.
Take a deep breath. Joke.
Oh, and I think W. is finally going to declare war on the Swedes.
Maybe Bush will appear in a toga, chug a can of beer and crush it against his forehead. The rest of the speech will be him & Karl Rove jumping around shouting, “USA! USA!”
Maybe I shouldn’t have watched Animal House so recently. Seriously, the president of my company does these “State of the Company” addresses every quarter or so. Usually it’s lots of upward-pointing graphs and hopeful previews of upcoming contracts. I predict the same from Bush; lots of “rah-rah” cheerleading, stuff about how close the Iraqis are to democracy, and how now is not the right time to turn control over to the U.N.
Oh, 9/11. Can’t forget the 9/11 anniversary mention, just to keep it fresh in people’s minds.
Spot on, Larry.
Squeegee, I think you should calm down and look at the nature of your post before assaulting elucidator for too much tongue in cheek. In my mind, your post was ill-constructed and waffling about any possible issue out there – just put the fine print on it next time, right? elucidator got to you first; I’m certain a great many other Dopers out there took the same issue to your post as he did. He was just a lot more gentle about it.
(Sorry, elucidator. Just missed your post.)
No worries. The guy just had a grumpy day, it happens.
OK, prediction time. That thing about 15 minutes kind of suggests he’s isn’t going to say anything spectacularly new.
So…I think he’s going to try and sell that “WMD program” line they have been leaking and developing. All that “dual use” and “retaining scientists” crapola, and hope it sells. He will try to imply that that settles it, issue closed, nothing more to see here, you looky loos, move along.
He will then segue into Iraq as a battle on the continuing War on Terror, still flatly insisting that “Al Iraqeuda” line. He will probably present himself as defying those evil terrists by marching straight into the center of the quamire. Some chin jutting here.
Finally, he will offer about half an olive branch to the Yurpeens, while trying to imply that they are eagerly trying to get in on a winning thing, and that he has reluctantly decided to accede to thier urgent desire to pour thier blood and treasure into the thirsty sands of the Godforsaken Desert.
Finally, he will say “…and God bless America” as if defying anyone to contradict him.
Either that, or he is going to declare war on Sweden.
British TV (Sky News) was making a big deal about it not coming from the Oval Office, but “somewhere else in the White House” - thus it’s not Bad News.
Now this is strange…
I just checked the TV listings and the speech is either not pre-empting regular programming on all the channels, or they haven’t updated thier listings yet. NBC and Fox arent carrying it?
Must be a mistake.
Animal House!! That explains it!
You know, the scene where Belushi is saying “when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor” and the two frat boys look at each other confused and the one says to the other “Don’t stop him. He’s on a roll.”
That’s what they said when Bush said “when the Iraqis bombed the WTC.” Powell looked at Rummy dumbfounded, and Rummy said the exact same thing to Powell.
Of course, I’m sure neither of them expected him to actually follow through on this.
Red Fury: TWAT. Nice. Two points for that one.
He’ll fire Rove, Rice, and Wolfowitz in one swell foop, as part of a secret deal to placate Powell “NOT to proceed to file a formal complaint with the Department of Justice”.
http://www.radioleft.com/article.php?op=Print&sid=1295
That and some stuff about peace in our time with honor.
Top 5 Things Bush Won’t Say in Tonight’s Speech:
-
“Just so we’re clear, Iraq and Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with September 11. I hope I didn’t imply that.”
-
“Let’s have a big hand for the fine men and women who fight every day to keep our country free–the ACLU.”
-
“Jesus, are you people still crying and blathering about September 11? It was two years ago! Get the fuck over it!”
-
“We’ve looked into it, and it appears Al Gore won back in 2000 after all. Sorry 'bout that, Al.”
And the #1 thing Bush won’t say in his speech tonight:
- “This Iraq thing is costing us a whole lot more than we figured, so we’re gonna need y’all to send those tax rebate checks back, if you could.”
My bet is that when he mentions Iraq, he will **not ** use the term “war”. after all, the ‘war’ is over and done, we won, he told us so. He will speak of ‘its now time for the rest of the world to step up and help us restore Iraq’
he will not speak of economy.
the timing and abrupt nature of the speech has (IMHO) more to do with an attempt to slow down his plummeting numbers than anything else. I believe that the administration believes that Bush is so convincing, and gosh darn likable when he speaks that he’ll be able to chat for a few minutes and get us all to like him again.
Toss in a mention of “the light at the end of the tunnel” for good measure.
Hey, where’s all the righties? Still got their tighty whities in a bunch?
My prediction:
-
He’s going to emphasize how important it is to stabilize Iraq. He’s about to present congress with a bill for possibly 80-90 billion dollars for reconstruction, and he needs to build political support for that. I think this will be task #1 on the agenda tonight.
-
He’s going to try to explain what’s going on in Iraq - that the average Iraqi is happy to have the U.S. there, but that there is significant resistance from terrorists from outside the country and Saddam regime loyalists within the country. He’ll tie all this to the ‘war on terror’, and say that the enemy they are fighting there are the same people they are fighting all over the place.
-
He’s going to explain why he’s going to the U.N., and try to squash the idea that the resistance of France and Germany now is some sort of comeuppance for U.S. failure to involve them in the first place. He’s going to point out that it was France and Germany that threw a wrench into the works before the war, thwarting U.s. attempts to go through the U.N., and France and Germany are doing it again, this time directly damaging the Iraqi people. Or something like that.
There are some real political storms building over Iraq right now, and this speech is going to try to shut some of them down before they build more momentum.
I don’t think he’ll talk about WMD at all. Or if he does, it’ll be just a peripheral comment about how they’re still learning about the programs and they’ll have something to say about it later.
Bush, In remarks prepared for a speech Sunday evening says:
Here, but likely subject to change after Bush gives his speech.
The story makes no mention of WMD’s.
According to that story, he’s asking for 87 billion. 87 billion tacked onto 4.5 billion per month for the military, gives us 54 + 87 = 141 billion, tacked onto a deficit already projected at half a trillion - that’s trillion, with a t - going into next year, and we’ll be well on our way to acheiving a trillion dollar deficit in our lifetimes. Cool.
It’s on now…I heard:
“all will benefit” “$66 billion” “no going back” “we are fighting the enemy” “the dangers have not passed” “we accept the duties of our generation”
Whew. George Jr. appeared a wee bit nervous!
This just in: President Prescribes Coprophagy! Open your wallets to keep the Terrorist Menace where he belongs! Remember how we tamed the Germaniacs and them Japanimals! (I heard $87B + $66B over the next 3 years.)
Also, he clearly says “Afghanistand.”