On Tuesday, in an event likely to be watched by fewer Americans than this afternoon’s Superbowl, President (and I use the term loosely) Bush will give his third State of the Union address. One day after the UN weapons inspection team gives its report to the Security Council, Bush — with Britain’s Tony Blair tagging along — is expected to signal that he has run out of patience, and that the war is on.
Despite the administration’s assurances to foreign leaders that the report will not signal the start of war, I am not reassured. If it doesn’t begin on Tuesday, it will begin soon after. Our coalition of the willing will march into the desert before the full Iraqi summer bakes the battlefields. (But don’t rejoice if summer starts and the war hasn’t — Newsweek says that since the US fights at night, the heat of the day isnt such a great deterrent.)
Bush will also tell us that his “class warfare stimulus” package will make the economic woes of average Americans all better by allowing them to imagine that one day they will be rich and will then benefit from their share of the US$600bn boondoggle.
I keep hoping that one day, my fellow Americans will wake up, but then I read articles like this one which reminds me that 52% of people questioned in a recent Knight-Ridder poll believe that at least one of the September 11 hijackers was an Iraqi.
You can’t wake up from ignorance. We’ll buy whatever he’s selling.
