Bush was in Salt Lake City yesterday
to raise money for Sen. Orrin Hatch and speak to an American Legion convention.
It was the first stop on his End of Summer Tour to sell his FUBAR Iraq War by linking it to the last American war that had overwhelming popular support. His speech to the Legion was sprinkled with references to "the beaches of Normandy." That he chose to start this tour in Utah speaks volumes. I guess Madison Square Garden must have been booked already.
But let's take a lie-by-lie look at this psychosis. Here's an excerpt of his ridiculous speech at the Hatch fundraiser -- a passage about two-thirds into the address before a crowd that paid $500 a head for the privilege of listening to bad jokes, stale rhetoric and phony history:
I understand there's a debate, and, of course, there should be a debate. I mean, I welcome debate in our society. One of the great things about America is people can go into the public square and express themselves openly without fear of the state. That's what we welcome. In these 2006 campaigns, there will be a lot of debate. There will be people -- good people, decent people, patriotic people -- who say, now is the time to leave Iraq, and they are wrong. (Applause.)
That's what you welcome? No, you don't. People who try to tell you what you don't want to hear find themselves unemployed. You don't want to hear about how badly things are in Iraq. You still can't face the families of the dead.
And the ones who say it's time to leave Iraq are not just wrong in your view -- they are quislings, al Qaeda sympathizers and Nazi appeasers. And when you are ultimately forced to withdraw from Iraq and the whole place is flushed down the toilet, you will blame them, the ones who stabbed America in the back. Your party will feed off that slander for a generation.
So spare us your empty words about how beautiful and sacred the democratic process is.
If we leave before Iraq can defend itself and govern itself and sustain itself, this will be a key defeat for the United States of America in this ideological struggle of the 21st century.
The ideological struggle of the 21st century? You didn't write that, did you? Sounds like more of that Axis of Evil bullshit that probably scored well with some focus group. You aren't content to equate your bullshit war to WWII; now you have to conjure reminders of the ideological struggle of the 20th century -- the Cold War. So, what we're really doing is fighting the Wehrmacht and the Red Army all rolled into one, right?
Hell, why stop there? Let's call it the War on Ideology, or the Ideological Struggle of the Third Millenium. Or the Greatest Clash of Ideologies Since Jesus Threw the Moneychangers out of the Temple. The base'll love that last one.
If we leave before this young democracy has its roots firmly in place, so that an example of liberty flourishes in a region that's so desperate for something other than a society that's caused resentment and hopelessness, if we leave it will embolden the enemy.
Too late, hoss. They're pretty bold already. Just yesterday the terrorists rented apartments which they packed with explosives to blow up the buildings. There were bodies everywhere. You want to see "resentment and hopelessness?" Go visit the Baghdad Morgue and see a mother try to identify her child from what's left of a body ripped apart by ball bearings packed in a bomb.
So what's your next brilliant idea? You've already got a big sweep of Baghdad going on with thousands more troops and the carnage has continued. Perhaps you should stop people from renting apartments. Yeah, that'll do it. Oh, and outlaw bicycles -- because a couple days ago someone blew up a bicycle bomb -- a fucking bicycle bomb! -- outside a compound where recruits were lined up to join your fabulous Iraqi security forces -- you know, the ones who looted the British military base in the passive Shiite south of the country.
BTW. How fucking stupid is it that -- years later -- they make these desperate Iraqi recruits line up outside? How desperate do you have to be for a job that you would join the Iraqi police? The Iraqi police are about as popular as insurance adjusters in New Orleans. Why don't they just make them wear bull's eyes on their chests? What the hell. If a few dozen of them are blown up now and then there's always more who can't feed their families.
The enemy has said this is the front in the war on terror. That's what they have proclaimed. They'll become even more bold. If we leave before the job is done, we'll help create a terrorist state in the heart of the Middle East that will have control of huge oil reserves.
Who opened that front? If I may employ Rumsfeld's WWII analogy, this is like Hitler complaining that we can't cut and run from Stalingrad. And would we be as concerned about a terrorist state that controlled huge reserves of lumber?
If we leave before the job is done, this country will have no credibility. People will look at our words as empty words. People will not trust the judgment and the leadership of the United States.
Too late again, hoss. You have less credibility than John Mark Karr. You're so radioactive your own congressional candidates -- the ones who aren't from Utah -- treat you like a homeless crack addict.
Reformers will shrink from their deep desire to live in a free society. Moderates will wonder if their voice will ever be heard again.
The reformers who aren't already dead have either fled the country, given up or are cowering in the Green Zone. There is no such thing as a moderate in a civil war. Moderates are the first ones lined up against the wall.
If we leave before the job will be done, those who sacrificed, those brave volunteers who sacrifice in our United States military will have died in vain.
That's just obscene. More young men and women must die so that the young men and women who have already died will not have died in vain. When John Kerry asked that famous question about who wants to be the one to ask someone to be the last person to die in an unjust war, I guess the answer was you.
And as General Abizaid has said, if we leave before the job is done -- if we leave the streets of Baghdad, the enemy will follow us to our own streets in America. (Applause.)
What does it tell you that you had to go all the way to Utah to find enough people to applaud a line like that. So if we leave the streets of Saigon, I mean Baghdad, the VietCong, I mean Iraqi insurgents, will start setting off car bombs in Peoria.
The stakes are high. I believe the only way we can lose is if we leave before the job is done. That's what I believe. I'm making decisions based upon the recommendations of commanders on the ground.
Your commanders are making decisions based on what won't piss you off. And as soon as they retire they are all over CNN describing the shambles you have made our military.
I want to assure you, polls and focus groups will not decide the Iraq policy in the global war on terror. (Applause.) And when we win, and when we achieve our stated objectives, it will be a major defeat for the terrorists in this global war on terror.
My son has his first loose tooth. I told him when it comes out the tooth fairy will leave money under his pillow. He's very excited.
It will strengthen the spread of democracy in the Middle East. Imagine what the example of a democratic Iraq, a country that has adopted a democracy based upon its history and its traditions, imagine the signal it will send to those reformers in Iran, or those hopeful Palestinians that say, some day we want a state to live in peace with our neighbor Israel. When we succeed in Iraq, we'll have created a valuable ally in the global war on terror.
Iraq has no history or tradition of democracy. Iraq is a fiction created by British and French colonialists. They even invented the name Iraq. Now you come in inventing a whole new country out of thin air -- a free Iraq that will stand as a Shining City on a Hill. Even Reagan couldn't have sold BS like that. He wouldn't have even tried.
And you don't still believe that Chalabi bullshit about Iraq recognizing Israel, do you? Iraq is more likely to send brigades of martyrs to help Hezbollah than it is to open an embassy in Tel Aviv. Oh, and Israel is our ally, but it is not a neighbor. Canada and Mexico are neighbors. Israel is one the other side of the planet.
I don't know if you remember this, but recently I had the honor of -- and privilege of taking my friend, the Prime Minister of Japan, to Graceland -- Elvis's place. (Laughter.) I've never been to Graceland. I thought it would be fun to go, but more importantly, he wanted to go. See, he was an Elvis buff. (Laughter.) I also thought it would send an interesting message that I hope helps explain the stakes of this ideological struggle we're in.
Huh? What does Graceland teach us about the Ideological Struggle of the 21st Century?
Can you imagine somebody after World War II saying, I predict one day an American President will be going to a singer's home with the Prime Minister of Japan? They'd have thought the guy was off his rocker. Isn't it interesting that a son of a Navy torpedo fighter who fought the Japanese with all his soul and all his might, like many of your relatives did, flew down on Air Force One with the Prime Minister of the former enemy? I think it is. And I think it's an historical lesson that we all can learn something about.
Interesting? Sure. Would have been more interesting if the son of that Navy torpedo fighter had fought with all his soul and all his might in the Mekong Delta when it was his turn to go. That way, he could later participate in the real Ideological Struggle of the 21st Century -- Swiftboatism.
But, who knows? Maybe one day Jeb will be in the White House and he can take Iraqi Prime Minister Moqtada al-Sadr to Graceland and they can joke about the old days when Iraq was All Shook Up.