In Bush's farewell speech, after several paragraphs of generalities, we got this:
This evening, my thoughts return to the first night I addressed you from this house -- September 11, 2001.
which led, of course, into the dammit-I-kept-you-ingrates-alive portion of the speech.
There was something creepy about this way of leading up to 9/11 -- it reminded me of a jilted guy who's harangued his ex until she's finally agreed to have coffee with him again, and when they get together he says, "Do you realize this is the first place we ever kissed?" Argh! Dammit, stop guilt-tripping me!
And it's clear that the address was delivered in the East Room just so Bush could use the setting to remind us that he was president on 9/11, which, as far as he's concerned, gave him so many moral brownie points that nothing we say can take away his own sense of his moral superiority.
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My favorite passage from the speech:
As the years passed, most Americans were able to return to life much as it had been before Nine-Eleven. But I never did. Every morning, I received a briefing on the threats to our Nation.
Er, dude, didn't you also receive a briefing every morning on the threats to our nation before 9/11?
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