E-Mail This Article to a Friend Hollow words Bush fails miserably yet again to justify his misconceived war. Plus, four local congressmen dance to the GOP’s tune.

Public opinion is finally catching up with President George W. Bush, but if his address to the nation — delivered from the safety of a secure, protest-free military base before an audience of about 700 members of the airborne and Special Forces troops — is any indication, it matters not a lick to the White House cowboy.

It’s been a bit more than seven months since 50.7 percent of those eligible to vote re-elected Bush by a narrow 2.5 percent margin of the popular vote. Hypothetical though the question might be, we wonder what the outcome would be today?

Bush spoke on the heels of a just-released Washington Post/ABC News poll that showed an increased number of Americans believe Iraq is coming to resemble the quagmire in Vietnam and that more than half the nation, for the first time since shooting in Iraq began, believe that the country is no safer as a result of the war. If the survey is correct, 60 percent feel the war is not worth fighting; 75 percent believe the number of causalities is unacceptable. And, for the first time since he was elected, a narrow majority — 52 percent — disapprove of the job Bush is doing.

Nothing Bush said in his televised address mitigates those judgments. His resolve may be stalwart, but his position is, as it has been from the start of this war, bankrupt. His explanations and justifications for Iraq sound like pathetic excuses. First there was the myth — in plain English, the lie — that we were threatened by Saddam’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. Then there was the ruse that we were bringing freedom to the long-suffering Iraqi people. Now we are expected to believe that Iraq is the essential battleground of Bush’s ill-defined war on terror, that our fighting men and women are there to prevent future 9/11s. The irony is that the new Iraq, now destabilized by Bush’s poorly conceived war, could in future pose a threat that the old Iraq, hamstrung by sanctions, never could muster. Bush created a political vacuum and a human wasteland, and declares it liberated.

Bush replaced tyranny and oppression with widespread chaos and free-floating civil war. The chance that an Iraqi might be tortured or killed by Saddam’s thugs has been replaced by the possibility that an Iraqi might be killed or maimed by a native Baathist or a foreign Islamic terrorist. That’s progress, Bush-style.

No wonder world opinion is unimpressed. One would think that freedom’s allure would have a rosy glow. But in most nations, the perception of the United States is basically negative, at least as measured by the authoritative Pew Global Attitudes Project. Disliked abroad and distrusted at home, Bush partisans applaud their man for staying the course.

Never mind that Bush and his arrogant, know-it-all secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, sent sufficient troops to "win" the war, but not enough to secure peace.

Never mind that the unpopularity of this war is undermining the foundation upon which our all-volunteer military is based and threatens — we predict, with pain — a reinstatement of the draft before this debacle is over.

Never mind that the human-rights horrors of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay, together with the domestic abuse of civil liberties that are central and odious aspects of the so-called war on terror, mock tradition and blacken our soul.

Never mind that the cost of the war in hard dollars strains an economy already dangerously stretched thin with debt and threatens the material well-being of future generations.

Tomorrow, the sun will rise again over America and we will still be in Iraq, with no end in sight and even less reason to hope for resolution. That will be the legacy of President George W. Bush.

Rallying around the flag

Last week, Republicans in Congress did what they do best: they embraced the politics of cheap symbolism, beating their chests with the false and ugly claim that they are more patriotic than Democrats. By approving a move to pass a constitutional amendment against flag desecration by a margin of 286 to 130, the House Republicans threw some red meat to their right-wing base while mocking the First Amendment’s guarantee of free expression.

Incredibly — and sadly — four of Massachusetts’s 10 Democratic congressmen sided with the Republicans in voting for the anti-flag-burning amendment: Stephen Lynch of South Boston, Bill Delahunt of Quincy, Jim McGovern of Worcester, and Richard Neal of Springfield. "There are many other forms of nonviolent protest that remain available to protesters who seem to have no shortage of creativity," Lynch was quoted as saying. "This is one they can do without."

The trouble with Lynch’s view — and that of his three fellow delegation members — is that symbolic speech, including flag-burning, has been consistently recognized as a key part of the First Amendment. Not that flag-burning has ever been a real problem; on the rare occasions when it occurs, it’s generally in response to measures such as the one approved by the House last week. Fortunately, 35 senators — including Massachusetts Democrats Ted Kennedy and John Kerry — are said to be ready to vote against the amendment, denying supporters the two-thirds majority they need to move it forward.

Democratic congressman Gary Ackerman, of New York, put it best when he said, "The reason our flag is different is because it stands for burning the flag. The Constitution this week is being nibbled to death by small men with press secretaries."

It’s a lesson that Lynch, Delahunt, McGovern, and Neal should have learned before they ever won election to Congress.

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