President Bush’s great speech this

President Bush’s great speech this evening, on the first anniversary of our strike against the Taliban, seems to me to mark something like the end of the beginning. I listened to it live on the radio and only want to note four points that struck me while listening to it. First, it was the speech of a serious leader. The president’s statement that we will not live in fear must itself strike fear into the heart of our enemies. Second, the speech was a war speech. The president’s warning to Saddam Hussein’s generals that they will be held accountable for war crimes suggests that action is imminent. Third, in drawing the character of Saddam Hussein, President Bush made the striking point that Saddam is a student of Stalin. This point forms the heart of Mark Bowden’s article in the Atlantic Monthly last spring, an article that we posted on the Power Line at the time of its publication. Fourth, when making the case that the war against Saddam Hussein is “crucial” to the war on terrorism and not a diversion from it, President Bush noted that Saddam Hussein is sheltering terrorists. He specifically named Abu Abbas, the head of the Palestine Liberation Front who is holed up in Baghdad, and recalled Leon Klinghoffer, his American victim. This is a connection that we have seen drawn nowhere else previously and it speaks volumes to us about the terrible truth at the heart of the president’s speech, as well as the awesome character of the speaker.
God bless President Bush, and the United States of America.