The President's Speech

I loved it. I laughed..here's the opening line,

"Good evening. Five years ago, this date, September the 11th, was seared into America's memory.

(some speech writer had fun with that one eh?), I cried, I was inspired and yes, noted a little bit of politics in it. I would have liked to see him acknowledge that there are other points of view on how to handle things. Throw that in along with "but this is how we're doing it because based on everything we know, this is the best way'. That would have thrown off the 'politics' question. Ah well.

So this morning imagine my surprise after the speech and the good news, (see the previous good news posts) Richard Cohen's column state without hesitation that Bin Laden has won. What the hell? So I read it. Now I understand. Mr. Cohen is well, mentally challenged. In spite of all the blatherings from Islamists about why they are fighting us, Mr. Cohen has decided that Bin Laden actually had a completely different plan and it's worked.:

It is, rather, that his (Bin laden's) initial strategy has borne fruit. It was always his intention to draw the Americans into Afghanistan, where, as had been done to the Soviets, they could be mauled by the fierce mujaheddin.

So Bin Laden has WON the war on terror because he drew us in Afghanistan where al-Qaeda is kicking butt? Like I said, mentally challenged.

So let's move on to the next opinion column in the post. Mr. Dionne has the Democrats answering VP Cheney today.

Cheney seemed terribly impatient with democracy Sunday on "Meet the Press" when he suggested that those who oppose President Bush's Iraq policies are helping -- excuse me, validating -- the terrorists.

Wow - VP Cheney doesn't like democracy? Well come to find out what he notes for Meet the Press is that our allies in the WoT (Iraq) want solid confirmation that we'll be there for them. He notes that doubts spread every time congress people start talking about leaving Iraq before the Iraqis are ready. He's not against democracy, he's against comforting the enemy. Mr. Dionne sees the opposition differently.

As the administration's failures have become obvious to an American majority, Democrats have begun to play the opposition's essential role of offering alternatives.

That would be awesome-if only they would propose alternatives! Instead it's just "we have to get out of Iraq". OK....but then what about Iraq?
-When it blows up, do we go back in?
-Do we stay on the edge and help immediately, or
-do we give them a chance to work things out?
-Do we move our forces to Afghanistan completely or
-do most of them come home or......
I'd even be happy with "we've talked with Iraqi's and we're thinking that if we back away that that could end the insurgency's excuses." But they haven't even done that. We are there at the invitation of the Iraqi govt. And by the grace of God and a strong president we will stay there, as needed, at least until 2008.
Thank you Mr. President for your speech last night. It was awesome. I am with Instapunk:

My guess is, not too many of us would want to be living inside George W. Bush's head right now. It's too much. For anyone.

I admire this man, President Bush, and his belief in goodness and people. I doubt I could sustain those beliefs in his position. And I'm optimist!

UPDATE: The enddate year is fixed. Doh!