THE SPEECHES. President Bush's speech last night was long and, especially toward the beginning, rather poorly delivered. His usual sense of righteous conviction seemed waning. The content of the address was no surprise: Bush proposed reducing the number of troops in Iraq by July, but only to pre-escalation levels of 130,000. And he envisioned an American occupation of Iraq stretching long beyond his own term in office. What really rankled, of course, was the President's misleading -- and delusional -- assessment of Iraqi politics and daily life. He painted a picture of widespread Sunni cooperation with American forces, Iraqis informing on other Iraqis in order to aid their occupiers, enthusiasm among youth for joining the Iraqi army and police force, and vague "real improvements in daily life." Bush made no mention of the steady rate of sectarian violence; the curtailing of women's basic civil rights; the lack of electricity and water; ethnic cleansing; or the burgeoning refugee crisis. A military strategy has failed to solve any of these problems, and has, in fact, contributed to many of them. Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed's official Democratic response was strongly delivered and effectively compared Bush's willingness to throw money at the occupation with his stingy attitude toward the State Childen's Health Insurance Program. But the more highly anticipated rejoinder came from John Edwards, who purchased two minutes of commercial air time on MSNBC. His main message: "The only way to end that civil war is for both sides, Sunni and Shiia, to take responsibility to end it by agreeing to a political solution. And the only way to force them to take responsibility is to withdraw our troops, starting now. Unfortunately, the President is pressing on with the only stategy he's ever had: More time, more troops, more war." And continuing his strategy of vilifying Congress, Edwards told the American people to demand that Congress stop funding the war. Both Edwards and Reed sidestepped the thorny question of how many residual troops Democrats would or should keep in Iraq after the withdrawal of most combat units. --Dana Goldstein
