Transcript here, and here is part:
Like so many other Americans, today and throughout our history, we serve and have served, not for political reasons, but because we love our country. On the political issues - those matters of war and peace, and in some cases of life and death - we trusted the judgment of our national leaders. We hoped that they would be right, that they would measure with accuracy the value of our lives against the enormity of the national interest that might call upon us to go into harm's way.
We owed them our loyalty, as Americans, and we gave it. But they owed us - sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it.
The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two former commanding generals of the Central Command, whose jurisdiction includes Iraq, the director of operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable - and predicted - disarray that has followed.
The war's costs to our nation have been staggering.
Financially.
The damage to our reputation around the world.
The lost opportunities to defeat the forces of international terrorism.
And especially the precious blood of our citizens who have stepped forward to serve.
Update 1/24: Think Progress offers a point by point challenge to Bush's SOTU.
4 comments:
Jim Webb minced no words. And he set a tone toward Bush that I like a lot. Paraphrasing Webb's concluding challenge to Bush: do right, and we're with you; otherwise, get out of the way and let us show you how it's properly done. Good for Webb.
Yeah!
I barely saw the Webb theengy, just hearing a few sentences was sufficient. I hope that he does no disappoint, but currently Webb means trouble for the Republiculos, and I can only see thees trouble growing, eh?
so.
What is more delicious than anything else is this NEW crop of leaders who have a spine, a set of teeth, and show both.
We can start thinning those old guard Democrats who folded without a fight in front of the Bush Neocon machine and get these guys in who know how to fight back. These new politicians know our country, democracy, and very existence hangs in the balance.
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