More fear-mongering from President Dingbat brings us the following highlights, with my commentary in bold. The context is a Congressional spending bill on the war. Bush wants absolute authority on fighting the war and Congress wants to set timetables. Speaking to a friendly audience, President Dingbat plays his greatest hits like a Beach Boys concert on July 4th. More analysis here.

Dingbat says:

A time of war is a time of sacrifice for our nation, but especially for our military families. Being left behind when a loved one goes to war is one of the hardest jobs in our military. The families here today inspire our nation -- inspire them with their sense of duty and with their deep devotion to our country.

The families gathered here understand that we are a nation at war. Like me, they wish we weren't at war -- but we are. They know that the enemies who attacked us on September the 11th, 2001 want to bring further destruction to our country. They know that the only way to stop them is to stay on the offense, to fight the extremists and radicals where they live, so we don't have to face them where we live.

In fact, Bush was asked about national sacrifice a few weeks ago. When wartime presidents talk about sacrifice, the image that comes to mind is that national effort to devote all resources to the war effort, like World War II, when certain goods and consumer items were not available because they were used to make tanks and weapons and other things deemed necessary to defeat the Nazis and other fascists. Here's what President Dingbat said when he was asked about sacrifice: "Well, you know, I think a lot of people are in this fight. I mean, they sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible images of violence on TV every night. I mean, we've got a fantastic economy here in the United States, but yet, when you think about the psychology of the country, it is somewhat down because of this war."

Watching terrible images on television is the new national sacrifice.

Dingbat also said:

Families gathered here understand that America is not going to be safe until the terrorist threat has been defeated. If we do not defeat the terrorists and extremists in Iraq, they won't leave us alone -- they will follow us to the United States of America. That's what makes this battle in the war on terror so incredibly important. One of the lessons of September the 11th is what happens overseas matters to the security of the United States of America, and we must not forget that lesson.

The consequences of failure in Iraq would be death and destruction in the Middle East and here in America. To protect our citizens at home, we must defeat the terrorists. We defeat them by staying on the offense and we defeat them by helping young democracies defeat their ideology of hate. And it's hard work. But it is necessary work, and thousands of men and women who wear our uniform understand the stakes.

. . .

We owe it to the brave Iraqis. I just spoke to the Prime Minister; I told him I was coming to see you. He said, please thank the people in the White House for their sacrifices and we will continue to work hard to be an ally in this war on terror. We'll continue to do the hard work necessary to help change the conditions that caused 19 young men to get on airplanes to come and kill thousands of our citizens on September the 11th.

This is classic fear-mongering, once again equating September 11 with the Iraq War. This false equation may have generated public support for the war, but everyone knows that Iraq had nothing to do with September 11 and that the Iraq War is a war of choice. Is Bush trying to say that dark-skinned radicals in the Middle East are out to get us, whether on September 11 or some other means? Or is the tape recorder stuck on playback and Bush is reviving the 9/11-Iraq link that greased the skids for war four years ago?

The argument that terrorists will come to the United States if we pull out of Iraq is a canard. It sounds good, and it's hard to argue with a fear-monger. But a survey of military and diplomatic analysts say this is highly unlikely.

As one commentator suggests, "Bush didn’t quite say, 'Give me a blank check or we’ll all be killed,' but he certainly seemed to be going down that road. It wasn’t pretty." There is no turning back from the Iraq war, and few Americans still support it. The only way to defend the war at this point is the say that things will get much worse if we pull out. The evidence for that is to the contrary. Imagine setting the house on fire with your children stuck inside. Pretty horrible, right? Now imagine starting a war in the world's hotspot that you can't get out of.