My take on the speech: It's ample evidence that Bush is a coward.

[baldguy]

He's a full-blown, yellow bellied, tail between his legs, pissing in his pants craven coward. The only reason he doesn't run away and hide behind mommy's apron is because he's trapped and can't.

You could smell his fear through the teevee.

He big Important Speech last night Didn't offer anything but vacillation between almost accepting blame for the unmitigated disaster in Iraq, to blaming al Qaeda, to blaming Iran, to blaming the Iraqis themselves. A brave and honorable man would admit his failures and take steps to make amends - withdraw US forces & propose to pay reparations to a country we invaded illegally without cause.

Yet he didn't do that. He admitted that he has created a catastrophe, and that a different approach is required - but then he doesn't offer one, just the same old same old: 20,000 troops. Which will bring our commitment back up to what it was a year ago. Just another drop in an ocean of blood.

Before the invasion, Gen Eric Shinseki testified before Congress that we would need 300,000 to 400,000 troops to secure post-war Iraq. He was promptly fired by Donald Rumsfeld, who believed in the PNAC blueprint written in 1996: Iraq can pay for its own occupation, Iraqis would greet Americans as liberators, and we would need only 100,000 troops. Its now obvious to all rational people that the PNAC approach was put together by so-called "experts" - smarties with a lot of degrees and access to a lot of money, but who had no conception of what horrors their proposal would unleash on the world.

Let's suppose for a moment that PNAC was right: America must control Iraq to ensure our national and economic security. Losing is not an option. Why does Bush offer nothing new, then? If success in Iraq is imperative, then why does he not take Gen Shinseki's advise and propose 300,000 additional troops? But the PNAC blueprint prohibits that. It would take a brave man to go against the people who placed you in power. And it would require a draft. It would take a brave man to call for a draft. It would take a brave man to say, "I fucked up, and to correct it I need to sacrifice your children." It takes a brave man to be president.

Bush is not a brave man.
(And now, hopefully, the American people know it.)

[monarch]

1. He didn't "admit" anything

He said basically that mistakes were made and that he accepted "responsibility" making it sound like the buck stopped there not that he was the one who actually made the mistakes.

[YDogg]

3. bingo

[baldguy]

4. I did say *almost*

[Dhalgren]

5. He actually said "The responsibility rests with me." What the hell

does that mean, exactly? You see, he got to sort of act like he was to blame, without really saying it. The "responsibility rests" with him. This was the only way his twisted psyche could manage even the pretense of admitting error. He probably cried for an hour when his handlers told him he would have to say something that sounded like he was accepting blame. So they came up with a construct that would keep him from breaking down in public while at the same time would sound sort of like admitting to failure. What a load of shit we are stuck with...

[KharmaTrain]

2. All Repugnicans Are Chickenshits

They play the John Wayne macho game, but listen closely and you'll hear a bunch of scare little kids. So we're attacked by 19 Eygptians and Saudis and these chickenshits go running for the boys with the big guns and go hiding behind them...just like the little brother hiding behind big brother to fight his fights. When the fight isn't going well, then little Repugnican brother cries louder to goad his older brother on...even as he gets more and more scared.

I've longed asked questions about the real dangers in this "War On Terror". Those evil brown-skinned Islamofascists wanna kill us? All 300 million of us? At once? In groups of 3 or 10? On Tuesday? (I need to know so I can cancel my poker game). Somehow a handful of brown-skinned guys are supposed to destroy this entire country and we'll all be chanting the Koran if they succede. Sheesh...spare me!

The idea of "sacrafice" for these goons are measured in your pain not theirs. As the scared shits they are, they will rationalize any and all use of force and bloodletting as that somehow makes them "Safe"...forget about the consequences or accept any of the responsibility.

I don't think people look at booshie as a "brave man"...but in concepts of incompetent. He's never done a brave thing in his pampered life.

[NNN0LHI]

6. Bush said he would have blown his eardrum out with a shotgun rather than go to Vietnam

That says a lot.

Don

[madokie]

7. he's a lillie livered coward

and I can't wait until Nancy gets a hold of him, she is going to turn him every which way except loose. Oh she's going to get a hold of him you can bet, the lady is not afraid and is madder than a wet setting hen. No one, I repeat, no one has anything on her to blackmail her with you can bet on that too.

[sarge43]

8. Of course, he's a coward

He has never once in his life ever faced a challenge and dealt with it. Any time one of life's juggernauts rolled his way, he either ran or Poppy fixed it. He doesn't know how to be a man; he's never matured.

When you look at the bios of the good to superior 20th century presidents; all of them had a personal catastrophe, faced it and overcame it - death of a child or wife, life threatening illness, failed business, political setback, crappy childhood, etc. They learned their strengths. Bush has no such experience to draw upon.