Marginal Utility

by Tom Bozzo

George W. Bush (actuality in NPR news break): ...and one of the reasons why it's important for me to continue to speak out and explain why we have a strategy for victory, why we can succeed. And I'm going to say it again: If I didn't believe we could succeed, I wouldn't be there. I wouldn't put those kids there.

Suzanne (remarking upon the president's unsettling tone of voice): Did they speed up the tape?

Me: I don't think so.

Suzanne: I wish they had a lie detector on him.

Me: Heh.

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Memo. The question to which the actuality was a small part of the "reply" was:

QUESTION: You've said throughout your presidency that you don't pay that much attention to the polls, that... There was a handful that have come back, and they [the polls] all say the exact same thing; that a growing number of Americans are questioning the trustworthiness of you and this White House. Does that concern you?

Would you trust George W. Bush to spy on you?

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Bonus Rude Pundit rudeness!

In his entire scripted speech... in Cleveland, President Bush mentioned 9/11 one time, in a comparison between mosque bombers and plane crashers. However, once he went off script and started taking questions, he contextualized his answers through 9/11 another ten times. It was a psychotic moment, like when you tell a four year-old not to say "Shit" after she hears Mommy yell it in traffic and then that's all the four year-old can say for the next three days...

But, as ever, it's not the fact that Bush didn't answer the questions people in the Cleveland crowd asked; it's the way that he didn't answer. Right out of the gate, someone asked, "Do you believe this, that the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism are signs of the apocalypse? And if not, why not?" Not once in his entire endless goddamn answer did Bush address what the Clevelander wanted to know, other than "The first I've heard of that, by the way. I guess I'm more of a practical fellow." And then blathering on about his job is to protect us, September 11th, and using "diplomacy" before the military.

See also from 3/21:

QUESTION: I'd like to ask you, Mr. President -- your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is: Why did you really want to go to war? From the moment you stepped into the White House, your Cabinet officers, former Cabinet officers, intelligence people and so forth -- but what's your real reason? You have said it wasn't oil, the quest for oil. It hasn't been Israel or anything else. What was it?

BUSH: I think your premise, in all due respect to your question and to you as a lifelong journalist -- that I didn't want war. To assume I wanted war is just flat wrong, Helen, in all due respect.

QUESTION: And...

BUSH: Hold on for a second, please. Excuse me. Excuse me. No president wants war. Everything you may have heard is that, but it's just simply not true.

BUSH: My attitude about the defense of this country changed in September the 11th. When we got attacked, I vowed then and there to use every asset at my disposal to protect the American people. Our foreign policy changed on that day. You know, we used to think we were secure because of oceans and previous diplomacy. But we realized on September the 11th, 2001, that killers could destroy innocent life. And I'm never going to forget it. And I'm never going to forget the vow I made to the American people, that we will do everything in our power to protect our people. Part of that meant to make sure that we didn't allow people to provide safe haven to an enemy, and that's why I went into Iraq. (CROSSTALK)