Dubya Reaches For His (National) Security Blanket

...with this speech, which John Podhoretz calls, "one of the most important presidential addresses of our time." And he's not a backer of the Miers misstep, either.

Of course, that's pretty much what is said of every Bush speech on the GWOT. What would have made this address fit J-Pod's description in my estimation is an ultimatum delivered to Syria and Iran to cease aiding the "insurgency" in Iraq, and another given to the mullahs in Tehran to give up their nuclear program or face U.S. attack and invasion.

The closest Dubya got is this:

We're determined to deny radical groups the support and sanctuary of outlaw regimes. State sponsors like Syria and Iran have a long history of collaboration with terrorists, and they deserve no patience from the victims of terror. The United States makes no distinction between those who commit acts of terror and those who support and harbor them, because they're equally as guilty of murder. Any government that chooses to be an ally of terror has also chosen to be an enemy of civilization. And the civilized world must hold those regimes to account. [emphasis added]

{*Yawn*} Nothing new or ground-breaking here. Not even any overt condemnation of the mullahgarchy's brutal repression of their own people and pledge to stand with the latter against their oppressors. Just the same vague rhetorical five-knuckle-shuffling we always get from this man anymore, followed up by absolutely nothing.

What's depressing, at least to me, is that I can't help suspecting that this speech was, at least in part, designed to regain core supporters who haven't been buying the "trust me" line on the Miers nomination this week. Just hop up on that pile of lower Manhattan rubble again with his symbolic blowhorn and we'll all forget the pathetic drift of his second term thus far and his all-but-declared war against the Republican base.

Yeah, I "want to believe," but what I want to believe is that he'll call another press conference, say he was "just kidding" about the Miers appointment, and bring out his real, Robertsesque candidate to replace Justice O'Connor.

Think of it this way: if a wife catches her husband cheating on her, does he attempt to get back into her good graces by saying, "But honey, I never cheated on you before...."?

And if that wouldn't work, why would citing the neat new home security system he just got through installing help?

UPDATE: Looks like I wasn't the only underwhelmed (American) specator:

The White House said the President's speech would be be "new" and "informative," but of course it was not. Instead it was a tedious compendium of cliches, bereft of substance, and proving nothing at all except that the President and those closest to him live in a parallel universe....The President, however, was in denial. He seemed to think that if he said "freedom" and "democracy" often enough - they're on the march, our enemies hate them, blah blah and so on - he was saying something profound. But he wasn't, and his performance was an embarrassment. It was painful to watch his smug smile when he thought he had said something clever. Meanwhile you suspected that one of the President's men, or women, was holding up an applause sign. Nonetheless the applause never seemed more than dutiful.

You know what they say - once is a fluke, twice is a coincidence, thrice is a trend. A panning like this wouldn't necessarily matter if it wasn't happening along side so many others on so many issues.

And it's in that context that the following email sent to David Frum is so devastating:

Simple - we are asked to "trust me," once again. In fact, we've believed too many times. We believed in school vouchers; we got the Kennedy education bill. We believed in tax cuts, now under permanent threat of going back up again. We believed "you're either with us, or you're with the terrorists;" Iran and Syria continue their silent invasion of Iraq. We believed in WMD; they're still buried somewhere in Syria. We believed in limited government; we got outrageous farm subsidies, steel tariffs, an unneeded prescription drug benefit, and a bloated transportation bill. We believed his commitment to homeland security; we got ever more porous borders. We trusted his appointments; we got George Tenet, Norm Mineta and Michael Brown. Come on; are we stupid?

It's simple: nobody wants to be made a fool of once again. The trust well is dry. It's amazing he can't see it.

And poor Harriet is just the lighting rod for a 5 year gathering storm . . .

This is not "shrill jeering, name-calling and underarm farts," peeps. This is a presidency disintegrating before our very eyes because the man behind Old Resolute took his eyes off the one thing that has held him up throughout the unremittingly raging tempests of the past five years - his base. A base that has been taking it and taking it and taking it because it believed that "he'll always get the big things right."

Climactic Supreme Court appointments are one of those "big things." He got it wrong. And he's now finding that that rock-like foundation on which his White House once stood is now turning to sand - and the unremittingly raging tempests aren't abating any time soon.