[sam h]

Another depressing thing about this speech is the pattern of routinely making these historical comparisons that are just patently false. This is nothing new for him of course.

[ QUOTE ]
"the terrorists are as brutal an enemy as we've ever faced"

[/ QUOTE ]

What? We fought the goddamn Nazis, and faced off agains the Soviets in the Cold War. How is this rag-tag bunch of terrorists as brutal as them?

[ QUOTE ]
"By any standard or precedent of history, Iraq has made incredible political progress - from tyranny to liberation to national elections to the ratification of a constitution in the space of two and a half years,"

[/ QUOTE ]

In what sense is this progress "incredible?" The pace of democratization in Iraq is considerably slower than most comparable historical examples, where electoral regimes were much more quickly implemented after the fall of authoritarianism, and also considerably less extensive. Iraq may be marked by extenuating circumstances. But it is ridiculous to claim that the progress there, in comparative perspective with other cases of countries attempting to transition to democracy, has been substantial at all.

There is the irony. In a speech about defending himself from the charge of lying in the lead up to the war, he gets up and blows smoke about the aftermath of the war.