President Bush went live at 8 p.m. Thursday to address the nation in one more attempt to sway the dissenting and waffling American public to favor a war with Iraq.
This news conference, announced early Thursday morning, was only the second prime-time news conference of his presidency. (The other aired Oct. 11, 2001 -- one month after the Sept. 11 attacks.)
Rumors abounded throughout the day. Had the United States finally captured Osama bin Laden, as some international media organizations had reported?
No.
Would this conference finally contain a definitive announcement of war?
Nope.
Did President Bush, in fact, have anything new to say?
No, not really.
The news conference was little more than a reiteration of the same pro-war talk Bush included in his State of the Union Address, intertwined with mention of North Korea and the recent arrest of Khalid Shaihk Mohammed, Osama bin Laden's No. 3 operative.
This repeated talk will no doubt placate the war-ready masses. But the purpose of the conference was for Bush to make his case once again and convince dissenters that attacking Iraq is the right thing to do.
Using prime-time power for this purpose is a legitimate cause, but revealing nothing new is a waste of time, and will do little to sway opposition.
Why the urgency if there was nothing new? Why put the American people on the edges of their seats all day, expecting something significant, only to tell them what they already know?
This certainly is not a good use of prime-time power. If this is all we're going to get, how many people will pay attention when he actually has new information?
There is little doubt that Bush will get his war. He doesn't need to use prime-time as a tool to get it.
Although it sure would be nice if he did so and told us something new to go with it.
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