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| Blair HAD to score a home run, Bush had enough support already. by SBDMT 03/19/2003, 9:22am PST | ||||
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Zebco Fuckface wrote:Diotallevi wrote:Entropy Stew wrote:I mean, I know style matters, but does it matter to YOU? Bush may not be re-elected in '04, but neither is he facing the political suicide that Blair may be. I happen to think Bush is at least earnest in his speeches, but certainly not a natural orator; it's especially evident how uncomfortable he while is speaking into the camera from an empty room. Juxtapose that with how jovial(and unpredictable)he is in those off-the-cuff moments during impromptu interviews. Check out tha HBO featurette Journeys with George sometime, no matter how much you may despise him the piece shows him to be fairly engaging. Enough about that though, back to everyone's preoccupation with the comparison: Blair had to knock 'em dead and get that vote. And even that wasn't my fucking point(not that I haven't enjoyed the discussion). It was his delivery as much, if not more, than the message. To merely read the text of the speech may lead one to believe it was just a concise, clinical presentation of charges, evidence, and a prescribed course of action. Blair had done this on several prior occasions with the same evidence, the difference in this one being the passion, the heart he poured out in that assembly. True story: I had been working nights this past week, and given the recent acceleration of events, I had been trailing off to sleep with one of the various 24HR news channels on in the background. Tuesday morning was no different, only my sleep was a bit restless. I had kind of drifted into that halucinatory sub-aware dreamstate where you are just enough disconnected from your surroundings to drift off towards sleep, but just enough aware of your surroundings that they become the focal point of your dreams. Actually, I dunno if any of you have any idea what the fuck I'm on about here, it may just be that I'm a mutant or something, but this is quite common for me. Anyways, I had been drifting back and forth between short bouts of unconsiousness and erratic dreams about being a soldier on the Kuwaiti border. Each one brought me a little closer to the danger, and each time I was awakened mid-dream by a soundbite from the Blair speech on TV. I forget the *exact* context of the dream, but it involved my unit escorting SAS troopers on a SCUD-busting mission, and just as I was sending coordinates to the gunner or whatthefuckever the full speech kicked in. I'd say about two minutes or so ticked off before I was fully awake and lucid, but once I realized who was talking and what he was saying, I locked in. Who can say if the natural buzz I was feeling had anything to do with my reception of his speech, but several times as he punctuated his message with emotional crecendo I found myself clinching my fists. Here's this guy, from a country and ideology that, at times, seem a world apart from my own, who seems to be willing to follow my crazy-ass government into Hell. Up until now I had, in spite of my own belief that our current course is just, felt pity for Blair. I worried that our leadership had him roped and would drag him over some cliff in the name of solidarity. I felt genuinely bad for what we were doing to him, his reputation, and his career. Then I heard the guy speak. Right there, flanked by the government he represented(which now wanted his head), having just suffered what pretty much every expert considered the deathblow to his support of military action by virtue of the U.N. security council's rejection of the british resolution, he faced them with a conviction and fortitude I can't recall ever seeing a world leader show before. Not in "This aggression will not stand", not in "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall", not even in "Ask not what your country can do for you...". Consider his closing statement:
That may or may not move some of you, but to hear it from the source cause the hairs on my arms to stand straight up. My pity is foolishly wasted on this man, for it is I who would follow him into hell. |
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