President Addresses The Nation
Written by Gary on December 18th, 2005President Bush just delivered a tremendous address from the Oval Office. It was the culmination of four, powerful speeches over the past few weeks that have directly countered the charges of Democratic cynics and defeatists. Since Bush has begun this major “push-back,” his approval ratings have jumped by nearly 11 points. Tonight’s speech was, by far, his best yet. It was eloquent and bold, yet tempered with a dose of realism and humility. Also, the speech was noticeably short. It ran just 16 minutes. He packaged his arguments for the invasion and his plan for victory into a five minute graph that was easy to follow and understand. He has been making the same points since 2004, but this was the first time (since the election) he geared his rhetoric specifically to “middle America.”
He also did a brilliant job at making dual statements: He recognized mistakes in the reconstruction and the WMD intelligence failures preceding the 2003 Iraq invasion. But he still steadfastly defended his initial decision to remove Saddam Hussein and achieve total victory in the war on terror. Similarly, he offered sincere respect for his critics, while at the same time highlighting the negative consequences of weakness and division at home.
I have not seen him this genuine, authentic and relatable in a long, long time. He finally returned to his conversational style - exactly mirroring FDR’s fireside chats. Every major network covered the address, so I am confident that Bush’s gathering momentum will only continue to strenghten. With an equally powerful State of the Union Address, there is no stopping us in 2006.
This part was especially moving. It was, one might say, “Reagan-esque”:
“I also want to speak to those of you who did not support my decision to send troops to Iraq: I have heard your disagreement, and I know how deeply it is felt. Yet now there are only two options before our country - victory or defeat. And the need for victory is larger than any president or political party, because the security of our people is in the balance. I do not expect you to support everything I do, but tonight I have a request: Do not give in to despair, and do not give up on this fight for freedom. ”
I think all of us at Savethegop.com - though we have expressed profound disagreements with this administration - can answer the President’s request and stand by him at this critical moment in history. The stakes have never been higher.
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PM
Bush must really be doing better then (lol).
19
AM
^
You’re a retard. And yes, I mean you to take that personally. You’re not funny in the slightest.
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Wow that really added to the discussion. I think we should re-consider our anonymous posting policy.
I did not watch the speech but from the transcripts it was great. I agree Gary that we are on the upswing, but this NSA spying business is going to be milked by the Democrats and the MSM for all its worth.
Democrats will not be satisfied until they know everyone who was spied on. I guess its ok to collect FBI files on your political opponents, but tap the phone lines of Americans talking to known Al Quaeda operatives and you have crossed the line.
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I missed the speech but a buddy of mine sent me an email this morning saying he thought it was really good.
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It’s so hard to take our liberal friends seriously when they don’t know how to spell.
beleave
there
aligence
trops
DAM
ALLREADY
COMMITED
Public education at its finest! I think I actually just lost an IQ point, reading that - fortunately, unlike Mr. Anonymous, I have a couple to spare.
Anyway, I too thought the speech was well-done. I was doing other things at the time, so I didn’t hear all of it, but I caught the “good” lines and thought they were all delivered well. I thought the highlights were the passage where he directly addressed critics (quoted above), the length, and the admission that it’s taken longer/been harder than we expected. It’s the kind of rhetoric both sides need to hear - he’s affirming what we (on the right) already know, and telling the lefties what they didn’t expect - and probably didn’t want - to hear. Gives them less to complain about… Or at least it would, in a logical world.
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Oh come on, Alex - there you go banning intellectual discourse!
(Kidding!)