The President Speaks

I hope you all got to hear President Bush's speech last night. It was timely, straightforward, and definitely one of his best. Read the transcript if you didn't get to hear it. Lots of reaction in the blogosphere, check out the Corner, Instapundit, Michelle Malkin. Almost 100% positive, and that's quite a feat for Bush...his conservative allies are quite willing to call him on anything they disagree with. I've yet to see Jim's reaction, and look forward to it. I'm glad to see the President swinging back at the defeatists in the Democratic Party. Their lame responses to the speech underscores their lame mentality...defeat for America is victory for the Democrats. This is going to come back to haunt them, mark my words.

JAS adds: Actually, I was watching the Falcons-Bears game on ESPN, hoping futiley that Michael Vick could hand my Seattle Seahawks homefield advantage throughout the NFC playoffs. Now we're gonna have to go out and earn it. C'est la vie.

From the transcript, and the live-bloggings of Cap'n Ed and Michelle Malkin, it sounds like another in the line of tough, long-overdue "push-back" speeches on Iraq that the President has been giving for the past six weeks. And, of course, I couldn't agree more with Morrissey that Bush should have been giving just this sort of national televised address on the progress of the war at least quarterly all along, like FDR's "fireside chats" of yore. Even a rope-a-dope has to end, and its practitioner come out swinging, sometime.

Apparently Dubya's MBA didn't include a major in marketing. Hopefully now he's learned the folly of that omission and will remain in a fray that he, and we, cannot afford to lose.

UPDATE: You think Bush's speech last night was "combative"? Good God, read what he was dishing out at a press conference this morning (via Hugh Hewitt):

"It was a shameful act for someone to disclose this important program in a time of war. The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy."...

"I want senators from New York [Schumer, Hillary] or Los Angeles [Boxer, Feinstein] or Las Vegas [Dirty Harry] to explain why these cities are safer [without the Patriot Act extension]. In a war on terror we cannot afford to be without this law for a single moment."...

One reporter tried to get him to talk about bringing troop levels down in Iraq and give specific numbers and timetables.

Bush: "I will not be drawn into giving artificial timetables and talking about troop numbers. Nice try, though. Your try is over."

Ladies and gentlemen, the POTUS is fully engaged. And I think the media and the Democrats can smell what he's cookin'.

What is that old line from The Incredible Hulk TV show? "Don't make me angry; you wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

Ankle-Biting Pundits has the live-blog.

UPDATE II: Here's what appears to be the best retort the Extreme Media can come up with (h/t: TKS):

Bush's critics will find plenty to pick on, as when Bush warned of the consequences should terrorists gain control of the Iraqi government. In such cases, he warned, "all dissent is crushed," but skeptics could be expected to predict the same thing could happen in this country if Bush's draconian Patriot Act is extended according to his wishes.

Sounds eerily like my attempted fever swamp parody from yesterday, doesn't it?