The president tried to impress the crowd and I must say they cheered and clapped and acted as if he were the new white sliced bread everyone wants. During the speech the president tried and tried and tried to convince his audience that Americans should stay the course in Iraq. He had creases in his forehead crunched up in earnestness and zeal. He said our Union is strong and we will make it stronger! He said the US will continue to lead the world. "We will act boldly in freedom's cause. We love our freedom and will fight to have it. There is no honor in retreat. We will never surrender to evil." (Lots of vague poetic concepts of courage and victory to rouse the blood of the huddled masses.) "We are in this fight to win and we are winning." (And we see all that on television don't we?) "The road to victory is the road that will take our troops home. Liberty is the right and hope of all humanity." He sited the benefits of wiretapping and the Patriot Act. "America is always more secure when freedom is one the march!" He sited the benefits of tax cuts becoming permanent. The rich people like this benefit because they feel they have suffered so much to get their money. He said that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are problems that need to be solved. (He suggests cuts would be a good solution.) He went on to say Americans want orderly and secure borders and a guest worker program. He spoke of affordable energy, using technology to ease our dependency upon our "addiction" to oil. He sited the benefits of nuclear energy, of which most people are scared to death. But he makes everything, even war and new nuclear plants, sound so idealistic and magnificent and appealing. He is inspiring and uplifting when he says "America is not in decline. We will lead freedom's advance. We will move forward, confident of the victories to come." He has the grand heaven-sweeping vision of triumph and control, and of complete world leadership. What a man, John Wayne and then some! He wants to go down in history books like that.

I didn't like his speech though. He didn't mention anything that I'm interested in, like the price of my heating bill, the fact that my grandchild won't be getting a student loan, the decline in the quality of the environment, the fact that men in black are now able to secretly spy into my personal business just because I'm a friend of Cindy Sheehan and Code Pink. The fact that the poor in our country are getting poorer and the rich...don't get me started! The fact that I can't be confident that the president isn't lying to me, since he has lied to me before, and lied and lied and lied. The fact that he didn't have a clue about how to manage the disaster of Hurricane Katrina, which was months ago now and he still hasn't "moved forward to victory" or anything like that. The fact that he signed a bill against torture and then took it back by adding that he didn't have to abide by the bill - talk about arrogance. The fact that someone in his very close knit circle leaked the name of a CIA operative, what is going on here? The fact that he wants to fund and develop "star wars" to use our atmosphere for war games... What is going on here? His administration is so secretive that it is amazing that this star wars thing even got out. The fact that the president has lost our country's good reputation around the world... We can't be trusted now. The peoples of the world are afraid of what we might do next. The fact that Bush has brought church and state together... What is going on here? The fact that he ignores real threats to the security of our country (North Korea, Iran...) and does the stupid thing instead... I'm old I know, and a ghost at that, but still, this president is so terribly offensive to me and lots of my friends; every step he takes is in the wrong direction. Just his recent appointment of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court is enough to send us away weeping and wondering what our world is coming to? Alas, our powder is never really dry these days!