ez_mo

Mykeru has a lovely recap of the speech with commentary. Such as:

So, I just couldn't help myself and peeked at the transcript of Bush's speech instead of actually listening to him, which is simply unbearable. To repurpose a joke from Gary Larson's Far Side cartoons, it reads like human speech as understood by a dog named Lies: "Blah-blah-blah lies. Blah lies blah blah. Lies, blah-blah-blah." But in particular this big flight of winged horseshit stood out for me in the text:

The troops here and across the world are fighting a global war on terror. This war reached our shores on September 11, 2001. The terrorists who attacked us – and the terrorists we face – murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance, and despises all dissent. Their aim is to remake the Middle East in their own grim image of tyranny and oppression – by toppling governments, driving us out of the region, and exporting terror.

To achieve these aims, they have continued to kill – in Madrid, Istanbul, Jakarta, Casablanca, Riyadh, Bali, and elsewhere. The terrorists believe that free societies are essentially corrupt and decadent, and with a few hard blows they can force us to retreat. They are mistaken. After September 11, I made a commitment to the American people: This Nation will not wait to be attacked again. We will take the fight to the enemy. We will defend our freedom.

Yeah, OK. So, using that logic, that you can attack people who share the same ideology as the people who attacked you, must mean that if Bush was in office during the Oklahoma City bombing, he would have immediately sent troops into Michigan and bombed the living shit out of Kingman, Arizona.

and

...the policy of this administration is the kind of sadism one can expect when kids who torture small animals grow up to command armies.

He nailed it on the head for me regarding national guilt. It's a worthy read.