WTF Is It Now?!?

State of denial

There has already been much analysis of the pResident's lackluster Iraq speech, the first in a promised set of six. The speech itself was largely boilerplate Iraq-yak from this pResident, all of whose talks are unidirectional and so filled with "progress" toward the "future."

The triumphant aspect of his speech, as Dan Froomkin, columnist for the Washington Post, pointed out was certainly the makeup job.

- Tom Engelhardt.

In press conferences, TV ads, and interviews this year, pResident Bush has manifested a series of psychopathologies: an abstract notion of reality, confidence unhinged from facts and circumstances, and a conception of credibility that requires no correspondence to the external world. Tonight, as he vowed to stay the course in Iraq, Bush demonstrated another mental defect: incomprehension of his role in history as a fallible human agent. Absent such comprehension, Bush can't fix his mistakes in Iraq because he can't see how - or even that - he screwed up.

- William Saleten.

As ever, Mr Bush was utterly certain of the righteousness of his cause. He admitted no mistake, or even misjudgement, in the year since his premature "mission accomplished" speech on a US aircraft carrier almost 13 months ago.

Essentially, the strategy set out by Mr Bush was less a plan than a list of five step-by-step objectives, each of them hostage to events on the ground.

- Rupert Cornwell.