The Chief Rallies His Troops

Cashel Boylo

The Chief Rallies His Troops

The Warrior President appeared onstage in a business suit, not in one of his more generally favored quasi-military drag costumes.
More befitting for a businessman who is getting richer every second as the price of oil soars.
As usual, Bush talked to a captive military audience, these Navy Midshipmen not much more than children.
Most unusual, but likely to become the norm, he performed without any of his usual Backup Chorus Line -- Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld were all conspicuously absent for this major White House speech. No Laura, Barbara or George H.W. anywhere in sight either.
The President declared the Iraq conflict to be his war, not to be ended until he considered accomplished the Mission Accomplished.
In tones ringing with patriotic fervour, reminiscent of Roosevelt's call for Unconditional Surrender of the Axis Powers, be insisted -- he likes to insist -- that he would accept nothing short of Victory. However long that might take and whatever it might cost.
Yet, the speechwriter is a master craftsman, this war cry has woven into it a cut and run exit clause, the flexibility to accept just about anything as a Victory.
Commander-in-Chief, All-Powerful George W. Bush flaunted his own special brand of staunch patriotism, reminiscent of Patrick Henry in 1775:-
"Give Me Victory or Give Them Death."