To the extent that anyone actually watched, I imagine Bush's speech, which I finally forced myself to read, went over like a lead balloon.
We went to war with Iraq because they had weapons of mass destruction. In the aftermath of 9/11 a lot of otherwise semi-sensible people were too easily led down the path of supporting the endeavor. When weapons were not found, ex post it became a humanitarian mission about spreading freeance. A large number of those people who supported the Iraq war, and now sorta feel badly about it, have consoled themselves with this idea, with some of them doing so inbetween suggestions that we just "mow the whole place down."
But, the US generally, and the Republicans specifically, don't really want to expend blood and treasure to go help out a bunch of furriners. They don't want to spend any treasure to help out Americans. Most I think would prefer to mow the rest of the entire world down, or at least wish it just wasn't there at all.
I'm starting to think that people voted for Bush so that he could make things right, and thus justify their support for him and his little adventures in the first place. But, Bush is going to continue to do things very wrong -- and this inaugural speech was a sign of that.
And, yes, troll repellent, freeance is truly a wonderful thing and we should take steps to encourage it. I wish we were.
