Slate's Fred Kaplan Slices and Dices the President's Iraq Speech

AT missed the President's televised Iraq speech the other night, but the reviews we've seen have not been kind. Critics have noted that Bush dropped the word "victory" from his Iraq lexicon and "moved the goalposts" on the U.S. troop surge and its goals.

Even some conservative pundits seemed underwhelmed by Bush's speech.

Perhaps the most effective dissection of Bush's performance we've seen was at the hands of Slate's Fred Kaplan. Kaplan highlighted a slew of presidential "deceptions or delusions."

Here's the opening of Kaplan's critique:

President Bush's TV address [Thursday night] was the worst speech he's ever given on the war in Iraq, and that's saying a lot. Every premise, every proposal, nearly every substantive point was sheer fiction.

There's more—much more here. But none of it makes the president or his Iraq plans look good.