George W. Bush is going to address the nation this evening, reportedly to tell us that he's going to ignore the wishes of most of the nation (and a surprisingly high percentage of our military leaders and Republican members of Congress) and proceed with "The Surge." It may not be much of a surge because we don't have enough troops for that. And it may take quite some time to surge properly…but damn it, we're going to surge. Okay, so it'll mean a lot more of our soldiers getting killed. Isn't that ever so much better than Bush having to admit he screwed up?
It reminds me of something I used to say when I worked on a lot of variety shows. I had a producer who'd come up to me before every sketch and ask if it was going to be funny. I'd always say yes and then I'd point to one of the other writers and say, "In fact, I'm willing to put his job on the line."
And is there something symbolic in the fact that on one network, Bush's speech will be preempting Deal or No Deal?
It will interest at least two regular readers of this site that I know of to hear that NBC is not going to waste a new episode of that game show tonight. They're rerunning the one from last Sunday — the one with the lady who was a fan of the movie Grease — and then in the time zones where the presidential address displaces Howie and the models, NBC will join Deal or No Deal in progress, after the speech.
Personally, I think Bush should just have 26 models come out with his Iraq plan. Each model would represent one percentage point of his approval rating by this time next week.