Bush Speech Insulting To All Americans

As the New York Times editorial page says about last night's presidential address, “Sadly, Mr. Bush wasted his opportunity last night, giving a speech that only answered questions no one was asking.”

Since the president likes reducing complex issues to oversimplified sound bites, I'll tell you what his goal was last night: “If I can convince people that September 11 and Iraq are the same fight, I win.”

One can only hope that Americans – at least those who don't watch Fox News – will be insulted by this and disgusted that Bush is once again using the blood of 3,000 of our countrymen to justify his massive, ideologically-driven blunder in Iraq.

The only honest thing the president said last night, was offered indirectly in asserting his goal of not allowing Iraq to become a haven for terrorists – as it most assuredly has become under U.S. occupation.

We are less safe now than we were in 2001 and if Americans don't know it intellectually, the feel it in their guts.

Americans in even the most rural and conservative areas of our country know that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with the September 11 attacks. The 9/11 Commission proved that and the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee ratified those findings.

It is repulsive that this president continues to falsely associate the horrible deaths on September 11 with this war and to use that fake linkage as a way to explain the deaths of more Americans.