George Wordsmith Bush

Last week's 20 minute speech by George W. Bush was so carefully worded, rehearsed and prepared, he looked like one of those robotic Presidents in Disneyland. Mechanical is a word that best describes his performance; stiff might be another one. But the mechanics of sending another 21,000 troops to Iraq sounded well greased with nary a squeak to be heard in West Point.

It's a pity that the move won't make much difference except in the body count. As far as the strategy is concerned, I'll leave that to the military pundits. In the end, it's the deeds that count, but for Bush it was all in the words.

Here's a rundown of the number of times he used the following keywords:

Al Qaeda = 9
America = 8
Civil War = 0 
Death = 1
Failure = 2
Freedom = 6
Iran = 6
Iraqis = 35+
Liberty = 3
Peace = 3
September 11 = 1
Syria = 2
Terror or terrorists = 12
War = 2 [but only in the context of the War on Terror] 

My nomination for best performance by a President of the United States? G.W. Bush.
Unfortunately, only one nomination in one category. Everybody else loses.

That's just my opinion. I could be wrong.