Written by: Beck

Would you believe I just woke up an hour ago? People who know me personally are invited to keep their comments to themselves.

The outlook for tonight is pretty mundane prior to Bush's speech. The only big name will be NY Governor Pataki. For some reason, I can't hear Pataki's name without thinking of the way David Letterman says it. Don't ask me why.

The official theme for tonight is "Building a Safer World and a More Hopeful America." Especially important will be Bush and others making the case that we are safer thanks to the 4 years of Bush. The task is especially difficult since, to an extent, the argument isn't necessarily that we were safer than we were when Bush took office (or since September 11th to look at it a different way), but rather, that we're safer than we would presently be had Gore been the president. Furthermore, he has to make the case that Bush policies on the War on Terror will continue to make us safer over the next 4 years than would be the case under a Kerry administration.

I myself think the "more safe" argument is something of a red herring. People understand now that we have to take the fight to the terrorists, but what they often don't understand is that the process, by definition, is going to stir up the hornet's nest. Before the US of A locked horns with Osama and his man brothers-in-arms, we could at least count on terrorists taking a somewhat laid back approach to their assaults on us. At the same time, we have to realize that those assaults would never stop. As such, things are going to naturally hurt for a while as we dismantle their ability to operate, eliminate their resources, and kill their "soldiers." A better (but less rhetorically stirring) argument would be that thanks to Afghanistan and Iraq, we are closer to relegating terrorism to the freakish corner of history it should be than we would be had we pursued things from a law enforcement standpoint.