So we here in the Detroit area had a quick visit from BushCo(TM) yesterday so that The Shrub could stand among the local Arab and Iraqi population in Dearborn and make a speech about how wonderful it is that Iraq is now free and how horrible Saddam was. No mention of the fact that they still have yet to find a single WOMD, but that’s not surprising. The speech was more PR spin than anything else and as such it was pretty effective on the audience at hand. The fact that those audiences are usually hand-picked ahead of time probably doesn’t hurt. He also spent time talking with all three of the automakers presumably because the New Iraq is going to need cars at some point.
I read through a transcript of the speech and I found the following two points from it to be somewhat amusing:
As freedom takes hold in Iraq, the Iraqi people will choose their own leaders and their own government. America has no intention of imposing our form of government or our culture.
OK, that’s cool, but then later:
That historic declaration expresses the commitment of the Iraqi people and their friends, the American people. The days of repression from any source are over. Iraq will be democratic.
Um, OK. I think the NPR news reporter that I heard on the drive home summed it up pretty well: “President Bush said Iraqi’s were free to choose the form of their own government as long as it was a democracy.”
I actually laughed out loud at that.
Posted on 04/29/2003 at 12:25 PM 
Posted on 04/30/2003 at 02:54 AM 
Heh! Yeah, I saw some of the speech on CNN last night, and I caught that too, and laughed out loud. And our man had that smirk on his face too, that’s supposed to say “cue applause.” Argghh ...