If Bush Spoke The Truth Tonight

My fellow Americans:

I address you tonight at a crucial juncture of my Presidency. The carnage in Iraq continues with no end in sight. The Downing Street Memos have proven that most of my statements before the war started were outright lies. And my approval ratings are in the tank, with even a few Republicans starting to question my sanity.

So tonight, in front of the soldiers I've exploited so many times before, I ask for your help in doing what must be done. My fellow citizens, we must undertake an initiative to blame the entire Iraq fiasco on liberals.

Before I get into the operational aspects of our mission, I thought I'd do my best to answer a few questions that have lingered for some time now -- particularly the question of why we're in Iraq.

Please let me explain.

2001 was not a very good year for me. I assumed the Presidency via a Supreme Court decision, having lost the popular vote in the 2000 election to Al Gore. My party lost control of the Senate. And, despite numerous warnings about pending terrorist attacks, I was asleep at the wheel on September 11, 2001 when 3,000 Americans were murdered in cold blood by people who were not from Iraq. To add insult to injury, I sat on my ass for nearly seven minutes after the second plane struck the World Trade Center -- reading to children with absolutely no idea of what to do. Perhaps you've seen the videotape.

Then, something amazing happened. The nation rallied around me. Not just Republicans, but Democrats and Independents, too. My approval ratings went through the roof, and America became united as never before as we vowed to seek justice against those who did us harm.

After striking Afghanistan, I sat down with my political advisors and we started to think about the 2002 and 2004 elections. The consensus was pretty clear -- war was good for me politically. At that moment, we embarked on a strategy to turn me into The War President. Iraq was an obvious target, but there was one thing standing in our way -- we needed a reason to go to war.

As the Downing Street Memos now show, we didn't have a real reason. So we simply made one up, and decided to hijack the nation's 9/11 grief for our own political gain and pitch the idea that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

It's amazing how this stuff always comes back to September 11. Isn't it cool how the worst thing that ever happened to all of you turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me?

The American media was a huge help. They repeated our talking points without any critical analysis, and they hit the "mushroom cloud" stuff pretty hard. We came up with a color-coded alert system and jacked it up and down just to keep everyone on edge. And we made it clear that we would attack the patriotism of anyone who disagreed with us in any way, shape or form.

And we lied. My God how we lied. WMD. Jessica Lynch. Pat Tillman. Iraqi oil revenue paying for the reconstruction. Being greeted as liberators.  Declaring "Mission Accomplished." It's amazing how people will believe anything they're told, as long as they think you're God's candidate. This works particularly well with voters in Kansas and Alabama.

And it worked. I got my second term -- thanks in great part to rural voters in Ohio and Florida who hate gay people almost as much as I do.

But now, things have taken a turn, which brings us back to tonight. Just how do we blame liberals for this mess, especially when my party controls the White House, the House of Representatives, the United States Senate, and the entire military?

For those of you who think it can't be done, just think of what we've already accomplished. We convinced voters in South Carolina that John McCain fathered a black child out of wedlock. We convinced voters in Georgia that Max Cleland was a traitor. We turned John Kerry, who earned five medals in Vietnam while I stayed home, into a coward. We even turned Jeff Gannon into a White House reporter.

We did it all. And we can do this, too.

Tomorrow morning, the White House will begin faxing talking points to Fox News and our talk radio outlets. If we've learned anything in the last few years, it's that facts don't really matter and we can convince half the country of pretty much anything as long as we keep repeating the lies. I ask you to stay on message and sell the idea that criticism of my Iraq policy is getting our troops killed and tantamount to giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Let our echo chamber work for us. And let us be bold.

In addition, the House of Representatives recently passed a proposed Constitutional amendment that would ban desecration of the American flag. We'll be coordinating with all of you soon on how we can tie that issue to Iraq, portraying anyone against the proposed amendment as hating America and wanting the terrorists to win.

Again, do not worry about all of the logical gaps in this strategy. Most people in our Republican base aren't critical thinkers anyway. Heck, most of them still think Saddam attacked us on 9/11 and we've found the WMDs. They've made my job a lot easier over the last four years.

My fellow Americans, we have overcome facts many times before. With your help, we can do so again.

God bless you, and goodnight.