Wednesday digest II

Gone is the George W. Bush of State of the Union Addresses past who would wink and smirk at friendly faces from the podium. Tonight, a chastened and humble President spoke for twenty minutes about the way forward in Iraq.

In short, and among other things, he said that Iraqi security forces are going to take over in November, the Iraq government is going to spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction over the next while, and that a bill will be passed by the Iraqi government to develop the oil industry for all Iraqis. At home, yet another bipartisan commission (that's three since 9/11 by my count) is going to be launched to offer advice to the President. Finally, although he pledged to implement a new military strategy primarily in Baghdad involving the embedding of 20,000-plus American troops alongside Iraqi forces in addition to the current cohort of soldiers stationed there, he placed the onus of progress squarely on Iraqi shoulders while making a by-now familiar case to the American people to support those who are fighting to establish a new Arab world.

As for the delivery itself? Unless you're into this stuff, you would have tuned out at about the seven-minute mark and started surfing to get the latest on Donald and Rosie because it was overly laden with military jargon. By the time he got back to speaking about principles rather than specifics, which I don't think the American public is much interested in, he had also uttered the words "American defeat", which is the first time I've ever heard W. even consider the possibility in such clear language. Very telling.

Certainly not his best speech ever, and far from reassuring, but I don't think it could it have been, under the circumstances.