The President's performance yesterday (transcript), while adroitly analyzed by minds far more nimble than my own, is nonetheless deserving of at least one more irrelevant response. It is no great revelation that Bush is perpetually at a loss for words, so it was no great surprise to hear his repetitive rambling about how "bad" Saddam Hussein is. If anything, it was just plain weird to see a sitting president utterly incapable of defending the principles and policies he used to justify a war he is currently waging. After reading various editorials of Bush's interview by conservatives (many of which express a grave and gathering disappointment), it becomes increasingly clear that such punditry is irrelevant. In the past, Bush has relied on pundits and editorialists and media whores to sell the finer points of his policies to the public: this is less an option when the issue is war. A President needs to personally articulate the cause the war, as Bush did in speeches from the Oval Office and from the podium at the U.N. in the days before the invasion of Iraq. Such is the reason why he appeared on Meet the Press. The fact that he is a pitiful failure in this regard ought to make conservatives – at long last – wet their britches with fear and shame.