So, did anyone else watch Bush's press conference tonight?
 

The sad thing is, someone writes most of his stuff.

all presidents have speech writers. but the president gets to say what he'll write. I heard a radio interveiw with the guy who wrote the "Tear down this wall!" speech for Reagan. it was pretty interesting.

but, lets face it, Bush isn't known for his public speeking skills :)

i saw it. i agreed with most of his sentiments. The only thing was that he didn't really address the main thrust of the question that one guy asked, about the appropriate time to use preemption. he was the guy who was like "You have been accused of letting the 9-11 threat mature too far, but not letting the Iraq threat mature far enough." i would have liked to heard him give some indication where we could expect him to use preemption again. IE: looking towards other threats like North Korea. That would have been a hell of a complex answer tho, if the whole answer could be given.

I dunno, most of his answers seemed like red herrings. Almost like they answered the question, without answering it. But I mean geeze, it sounds basically like he wants to do exactly what he father did that got us into this mess! Giving training and weapons to Iraq will not be good for us down the line.

er... the alternative to an Iraq with a army that can defend itself or a police force that can stop crime is that Americas will forever be doing it for them.

we DONT want Iraq turning into a helpless state sucking off the teat of American foreign aid. Thats basically what we did in Haiti. If you handicap a nation intentionally, it will NEVER grow into a mature self governing state. The risks of training a compitant military in Iraq are well worth it. especially since our training includes a lot about professional conduct.

PS: the Iraq-Iran war, in which we backed Iraq against the soviet backed Iran (who was an enemy of ours to begin with) was during Reagen's tenure, not Bush 41's.

I know we can't baby Iraq forever, but I also don't think giving them weapons is a good idea either. But I see what you are saying, we are doing what we can while trying to help ourselves. I dunno, I've just read so much on the things that go on behind the sences...

out of curiousity, what other questions were you unsatisfied with the answers?

here's the speech, if anyone wanted to check it out
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory...litics/2503831

One question, that I heard a couple times, was if he felt responsible for not doing anything sooner. He kept saying that he was angry at the terrorists and that he felt sad for the families. That crosses into that falacie area where it barely is an answer to the question, without actually being an answer.

well sure. When someone asks a question that can translate to "We want you to accept blame for 9/11, please do that now", he's not going to say "of course! blame me! its my fault!"

He only once repsonded with the proper answer, to my recollection. which is: The ones to blame are the terrorists.

amends between those who died (or maybe more accurately, those who had family and friends that died) and those who commited the crimes can't really be acheived thru a third party. If i kill your brother, George Bush apologizing, or acepting blame, or going to jail for me isn't going to right a wrong, nor will there be justice, nor should you forgive me because of what George Bush says. The only "apology" that would ever count is from me. in the case of Bin Laden, you're not going to EVER get an apology from him.

for me, he cut to the core of the matter with that response. poointing fingers at each other doesn't accomplish what needs to be accomplished: kicking the terrorist's asses. The target aught to be the terrorists, but for certain political groups, the target is Bush.

What I want to really see, is how this plays out in other areas in the world. Specifically, I'm interested in Japan & Germany.

In Bush's speech, he hyped their WWII aspects quite a bit, however I expect that both Japan & Germany would just rather put those sordid events behind them. Plus, I'd think Japan especially might feel like it deserved being left out of the discussion, given the actual troop support & monitary support provided in Iraq.

This, combined with the Japanese kidnappings, plus the fact that war isn't totally popular in Japan, might serve as some sort of backlash, and I could see Japan even pulling out because of this. Of course, I don't know that for certain, and I don't have that much of a tab on the Japanese pulse. I just could see, at least a few getting a bit peeved.

Of course, that's always been a problem with any speechs Bush ever gives to the nation, they never even consider that anybody else is listening in. I mean, relations with North Korea, certainly went south after his Axis of evil remark, and while you can argue that point to an extent, it remains fact, that I don't think he even considered that NK might be listening in.

As well may be the case this time around, as his speech was rather crude in its treatment of Iraqis, making them sound as if they were children. Sure, that might not get translated exactly, so the sentiment might not carry, but it certainly seemed like that was meant for our ears only, and not Iraqis.

Sky Warrior Bob

I got that feeling too watching it. Granted I only got a half hour, but I what I saw was this: Media guys accusing/questioning, Bush trying to constantly go with the war and shut up media guys you're jerks.

Okay, that last part wasn't really in there, but he didn't seem all that happy with the questions. In his defense, it did seem every question was trying to pin 9/11 on him, and that's rediculous. I'm not a supporter of Bush, but I don't think pinning that tragedy on anyone will be doing anyone any good. Trying to make a scapegoat out of the president, whether you like him or not, is rediculous.

On the other side, didn't it seem like forty minutes between questions waiting for Bush to come up with an answer? Just an observation. :P