It’s our calling to keep the pressure on these people

It’s the 4th of July, and George Bush gave a little speech about the need to kill foreigners thousands of miles away. I’m pretty sure Jefferson put something about that somewhere in the Declaration of Independence. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of Osama bin Laden.

Remember, no matter how many times words like freedom and liberty vomit from the chimp-like mouth of George W. Bush, they’re still good things. It may, however, be a while before we can hear them without flinching.

Bush gave his speech in West Virginia, where for some reason he spends most of his 4ths of July (if that is the correct plural). He says it’s because “I love coming to your state because it’s a state full of decent, hardworking, patriotic Americans, unlike those losers in Vermont.” I may have made up that last bit. Bush, by the way, has never been to Vermont as president.

For symbolic reasons, he always addresses military audiences, in this case the West Virginia Air National Guard. He spoke in a maintenance hangar, which I like to think was also symbolic.


He said, “I enjoyed reciting the Pledge of Allegiance with some of the children from our military families. I thought they handled their task quite well.”


And then he asked them who that Richard Stands fella was.

IN OTHER EXACTLY THE SAME WORDS: “More than two decades [sic] later, it is hard to imagine the Revolutionary War coming out any other way – but at the time, America’s victory was far from certain. In other words, when we celebrated the first 4th of July celebration, our struggle for independence was far from certain.”

SOME? NAMES, WE WANT NAMES: “Because in this war, we face dangerous enemies who have attacked us here at home. Oh, I know the passage of time has convinced some -- maybe convinced some that danger doesn’t exist.”

NOT JUST A FACE FOR LIBERTY, BUT THE GREATEST FACE FOR LIBERTY: “In Afghanistan -- where I know some of you have been deployed and some of you are deployed -- we removed a regime that gave sanctuary and support to al Qaeda as they planned the 9/11 attacks which killed nearly 3,000 citizens. They found safe haven. That’s what they like. They like a place where they can plot and plan in relatively – in security, all aiming to come and harm the citizens of the greatest face for liberty in the world.”


WE DO? “We believe in an Almighty, we believe in the freedom for people to worship that Almighty. They don’t.”

A COLLECT CALL, NO DOUBT: “And it’s our charge, it’s our calling to keep the pressure on these people”.

He said that if the US leaves Iraq, Al Qaeda will be able to “establish their safe haven from which... to plan and plot attacks against the United States.” It’s always plan and plot (or sometimes plot and plan), isn’t it? Aren’t those pretty much the same thing?

They would also use Iraq’s oil to “exhort economic blackmail on those who didn’t kowtow to their wishes.” Another word Bush doesn’t know the meaning of: exhort.