I feel compelled … to set the record straight about why we got into this war… It had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden. It had nothing to do with al Qaeda. It had nothing to do with September 11th.
—Sen. John Rockefeller of West Virginia, top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee
President Bush cited the 9/11 attacks five times in his speech Tuesday. He offered no substantive reason for hope that this situation will get better anytime soon. (On Monday, after having been widely quoted, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld denied saying the Iraqi insurgency could last twelve years.) Bush faces an increasingly skeptical public which is finally coming to grips with the facts that Bush lied about the reasons for going to war and that the insurgency is not weakening; liberals quickly spun the speech as having fallen flat.
A Zogby poll says the “address to the nation produced no noticeable bounce in his approval numbers, with his job approval rating slipping a point from a week ago, to 43%,” and that “more than two-in-five voters (42%) say they would favor impeachment proceedings if it is found the President misled the nation about his reasons for going to war with Iraq.”