Will the real Bush please stand up

Thanks to MSNBC live feed to their website, I was able to watch Bush's address yesterday live. And it was well worth it. What I noticed was nothing short of a sea change before my eyes most specifically during the Q&A. It felt almost as though Bush had awoken from a dream to reality. Or said another way, it felt like I got to see some of the real George Bush during that Q&A. Often he feels scripted and so pro following an agenda. I thought he was very candid and open to new agendas. He did manage to still put in catch phrases in his prepared remarks like his old stand by, "liberty" and a new one "fresh eyes", but in his Q&A again I thought he was very real. And this intuitively makes sense. He's got nothing to fight for any more. He has won his elections and the mid-terms are over...now the real Bush can please stand up. Is GW really the one who wanted go after Iraq, is he really the one that has shaped foreign policy? I am not certain of these answers but if you believe what Woodard has written in his latest book, Bush is not. I am very curious to see what happens over the next 2 yrs.

As for the democrats, winning power is a double edged sword. Because now they are equally responsible for shaping the conversation on what to do in Iraq and foreign policy. It is not easy enough to say what we have done is bad. They now have to say, what do we do from here. This is not an easy answer for anyone and there is no easy solution. The Dems got what they wanted but can they execute? Always a question that lends itself to uncertainty.