Did anyone notice Bush's oddly worded claims about our place in history, delivered close to the end of his SOTU address?

Today, having come far in our own historical journey, we must decide: Will we turn back, or finish well?

Before history is written down in books, it is written in courage. Like Americans before us, we will show that courage and we will finish well.

He gives the impression that history will be finished when he is through doing what he is doing. I thought this wording so odd that it made no sense until I discovered this 1997 sermon by Jerry Falwell: "Learning to Finish Well;" the full text can be found at http://sermons.trbc.org/970713.html.

Bush's lines are reported to be a message in "code" to reassure his right-wing evangelical base that he loves them. While this may come as no surprise to some, one has to pause and ask, how come most of the rest of the world thinks he is loony? He sounds loony, that's why. They (and a whole lot of us) are not in on his private jokes. And his actions portray a mad man at the helm.

If Mr. Sands turns out to be correct, here is the final evidence to show that George W. Bush is a dangerous, tyrannical nut who will stop at nothing, has murdered countless human beings in his quest for power, and has put this nation on the brink of destruction. Enough! He must be stopped.

Unfortunately another memo suggesting that Bush had his mind made up about Iraq is not likely to have much impact in this country. War Room noted the psychological research recently which indicated that once people have a political bias, mere facts won't dissuade them from it. So for the people who already think Bush is a terrible, destructive, incompetent President, this new memo will be like throwing a lit match into an inferno. For those who are on Bush's side because "he's a good Christian" or "he's just like us" or "he's conservative and that's good enough for me" this memo will like throwing that same lit match into the ocean. For those people, Bush could decapitate a screaming "terrist" on live tv and they would applaud (even if later it turned out the person only happened to have the same name as one on a terrorist watchlist.. oh well).

Leaving aside the public dissimulations, which everyone is used to by now.

This says President Bush told Mr. Blair he wanted to send U.S. pilots specifically and deliberately to be shot at in order to justify his war.

Is it just me? Isn't that, well, outrageous?

Remember during the debates in 2004, when John Kerry said that the war in Iraq cost $200 billion?

The next day, after Bush had lied through his teeth about, well, everything, the media had to 'balance' Bush's untruths with something that Kerry had said - well, otherwise they'd get angry faxes from Ken Mehlman, and they wouldn't want that, would they?

So they said that Kerry lied about the cost of the war.

As we say back home in England, ha bloody ha. $200 billion is beginning to sound like a right bargain (as in "it's a steal, it's a deal, it's the sale of the f****ng century")

Just saying.

- SteveR