From Seattle writer and consultant Matt Rosenberg...: George, Listen To The Comic

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George, Listen To The Comic

April 13, 2004

Yesterday in the Weekly Standard online, Larry Miller urged President Bush to speak to the nation and reiterate we're in it for the long haul in Iraq. Miller has a few more good talking points for Bush: what's happened in and around Fallujah shouldn't shock anyone; that landing on the air carrier and declaring victory was a really dumb stunt; and we're still going to win, dammit!

Tonight, as it happens, Bush addresses the nation on Iraq.

Here's a bit more from Miller, a writer/comic/actor from L.A. who writes regularly for the magazine.

...anyone who ever reads past page two has known since President Bush landed on that aircraft carrier that Fallujah was the...core of everyone who ever worked and killed for Saddam Hussein....it might as well be called Tortureville, or Saddamfield, or Baathburg....What in the world did anyone imagine was going to sprout up there in the last 12 months? A chamber of commerce? A garden club? A band shell for Sunday programs of Sousa?
...I MENTIONED the president and the aircraft carrier for a reason...I hated it. I support what we've done the whole way; I think we've started to crack the hardest granite in history; I think we're in World War Three, Four, Five, and Six-through-Ten combined--and I think we should be--but I hated that landing so much....It was an end zone dance, and I hate end zone dances...the game isn't over by a long shot.

Miller then gives us what may be a sneak preview of Bush's speech tonight:

..what he should have done then..is what he can still do now (is)....A speech. A big one. A grave one. Say that the world is a very bad place and has been for a long time, and that we're going to stop it in its tracks and make it better because we have to, and because, as Tony Blair said when he spoke to Congress, 'It's your destiny.'
..Most important, say, 'It may happen before, during, or after the election, but I don't care, I'm doing it because it's right, and if I'm president again next year, I'm going to keep doing it.'

And then win....Win. Stopping building schools. Win. There's plenty of time and need for hospitals, but first . . . Win...If I have to listen to one more administration spokesperson say, 'The overwhelming number of Iraqis is with us, it's just a small percentage of cranks causing all the trouble,' I'll be tempted to say something I swore I never would: 'Du-uuh.'

A small percentage, huh? About the same size as the few thousand Bolsheviks who took over the 100 million Russians in 1917? More? Less?

UPDATE: The online arm of The Australian, that country's leading national daily, claims that in his speech tonight, Bush is expected to announce more U.S. troops in Iraq. We'll see. (The head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid, has requested at least two additional mechanized combat brigades for Iraq, which would mean anywhere from 10,000 to 14,000 more troops).