I saw President Bush speak on Friday. He's a chode, but I got to give his speech-writers props. He managed to come off as being somewhat straightforward and actually said a lot of reasonably specific things about what he was planning on doing when he gets re-elected. Of course, the double-speak was pretty thick too. He even said Iraqiis are free - not gaining freedom or fighting for freedom, but actually free. Well they are definitely less controlled by government, but unfortunately government includes police and public utilities.

Bush also of course, added up the International successes he's had, such as Libya's de-nuclearization, Afghanistan, killing lots of key Al Qaeda, and so on, and it did make him sound like he's done some good stuff for the world. He made a particular point of emphasizing that 44% of the women of Iraq have registered to vote, which was impossible before. The effect seemed to be to make it look like Iraq is going to turn out ok, even though the one thing has nothing to do with the other, particularly if after elections they invoke Sharia (Islamic Law), which has been proposed. In that event, the upcoming elections will be the only one in which women get to vote for a while.

Bush also took a stab at Russ Feingold for being the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act, which I thought was a bit strange. It's one thing to be on the losing side of a vote, but it is another thing entirely to be the only one. Feingold is either very brave or entirely out-of-step. The latter is what Bush was obviously thinking, but then he also repeatedly said he'd defend the country "using any means necessary." That sort of blanket-statement is exactly why people are scared of laws like those in the Patriot Act. Of course, it doesn't sound as good to have a President say something like "I'll defend our country using any means which uphold our pledge of universal human rights." He did say that he supports the idea of innate rights and the idea that every life is precious. However, the exception was those who Bush said were without "conscience" - the evil heathen hordes who are fundamentally against freedom. Bush said that he'd never question "the sacrifice" of our troops (as if that somehow excluded the consideration of how our troops are used). He later said that he would "never put our national security in the hands of another nation." That seemed to resonate with a lot of people in the crowd, but it seemed scary to me when taken together with his "any means necessary" statement. He also re-iterated his belief in pre-emptive strikes.

About 10,000 people showed up, or 1/8th of the population of my town. Craziness. However, the Racine Journal Times estimated that 2,400 people showed up. That seems unlikely given that there about a thousand people on each of four large bleachers, not to mention the thousands of us packed in the middle of the field like sardines.