US Diary: given that Bush has been such a fuckup, I'll say this for his Oval Office speech: at least he sounded humble

Of course it's a carefully designed posture, but still: President Bush looked and sounded quite humble tonight. The news was not in what he said -- he trotted out 9/11 yet again, for chrissake -- but in how he came across. He wanted to make nice, even with his critics. Quite refreshing, for me at least.

One thing is becoming more and more clear: the Administration is getting ready to cut and run. His new "I hear my critics" posture is in anticipation of that. He might soon say: look, we've done all we can, we've been honorable, now it's up to the Iraqis, so I've decided to leave Iraq to the Iraqis, and I'm bringing our troops back home. He has left the notion of victory sufficiently vague for him to define it when he decides we've achieved it: which could be in three months time. He'll say he listened to America, and he knows we want our boys and girls back home safe, so he's decided to bring them home.

One thing he won't be able to retrieve: his own honor. That's gone. Not only will he have to answer those who say he broke the law when he OKed spying on US citizens without getting a court warrant, but he'll have to answer those who say he dragged our nation's name through the mud when he sanctioned torture. That he will never live down; that I will personally never forgive him for. He will, in the end, be known as our first out-and-out immoral president. The only way in which he might escape responsibility is if historians end up blaming Vice-President Cheney more for everything that's happened -- the lies, the war, the torture -- than the President himself. Then he might be the first President who's regarded as a sometimes unwitting tool of his own Vice-President. Hardly salutory.

All in all, not a President that the American people can feel proud about voting for.