I’ve been flat on my back for the past couple of days with a stomach bug I caught off the kids.

Regardless of what David Blunkett thinks, apart from the double bills of Hill Street Blues on More4 and triple bills of the new Batman cartoon on CBBC, daytime television is a deadly embrace between sadistic schedule planners and masochistic viewers.

Yesterday, the remote control having been carried off somewhere by the toddler and me being to weak to move, I found myself trapped in front of George Bush’s speech on The War Against Terror at The Chrysler Hall in Norfolk Virginia, which was being shown live on BBC News 24, ITV News and Sky News. Just where the need was for such a speech, I’m not quite sure. But indictments against, at least, Scooter Libby were expected so, what the Hell. Raising the Terror Alert was probably a bit too obvious on this occasion so a televised speech got the thumbs up instead. Another political crisis, another speech on Turr.

It was this passage of the speech, however, that caught my ear:

“Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; and still others, Islamo-fascism.”

Where had I heard that before? Jon Stewart had mocked Bush and his stumbling delivery of the same line on the Daily Show a couple of weeks back. Here’s the paragraph in full from Bush’s speech of yesterday:

Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; and still others, Islamo-fascism. Whatever it’s called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam. This form of radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent and political vision: the establishment, by terrorism, subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom. These extremists distort the idea of jihad into a call for terrorist murder against Christians and Hindus and Jews — and also against Muslims who do not share their radical vision, whom they regard as heretics.

Now, here is a paragraph from a speech he gave on October 6, also titled, like yesterday’s, President Discusses War on Terror:

Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism. Whatever it’s called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam. This form of radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent, political vision: the establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom. These extremists distort the idea of jihad into a call for terrorist murder against Christians and Jews and Hindus — and also against Muslims from other traditions, who they regard as heretics.

Apart from a slight tightening of the language - Hindus slip from number two to number three and it’s no longer “Muslims from other traditions” but “Muslims who do not share their radical vision” - it’s the same text.

Needless to say, September 11 featured heavily in both speeches, six times in each. Here’s yesterday’s speech:

Many militants are part of a global, borderless terrorist organizations like al Qaeda — which spreads propaganda and provides financing and technical assistance to local extremists, and conducts dramatic and brutal operations like the attacks of September the 11th. Other militants are found in regional groups, often associated with al Qaeda — paramilitary insurgencies and separatist movements in places like Somalia, the Philippines and Pakistan and Chechnya and Kashmir and Algeria. Still others spring up in local cells — inspired by Islamic radicalism, but not centrally controlled or directed. Islamic radicalism is more like a loose network with military branches than an army under a single command. Yet these operatives, fighting on scattered battlefields, share a similar ideology and vision for our world.

And here’s the October 6 speech:

Many militants are part of global, borderless terrorist organizations like al Qaeda, which spreads propaganda, and provides financing and technical assistance to local extremists, and conducts dramatic and brutal operations like September the 11th. Other militants are found in regional groups, often associated with al Qaeda — paramilitary insurgencies and separatist movements in places like Somalia, and the Philippines, and Pakistan, and Chechnya, and Kashmir, and Algeria. Still others spring up in local cells, inspired by Islamic radicalism, but not centrally directed. Islamic radicalism is more like a loose network with many branches than an army under a single command. Yet these operatives, fighting on scattered battlefields, share a similar ideology and vision for our world.

October 28:

Some might be tempted to dismiss these goals as fanatical or extreme. They are fanatical and extreme, but they should not be dismissed. Our enemy is utterly committed. As Zawahiri [sic] has vowed, “We will either achieve victory over the human race or we will pass to the eternal life.” And the civilized world knows very well that other fanatics in history, from Hitler to Stalin to Pol Pot, consumed whole nations in war and genocide before leaving the stage of history. Evil men, obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience, must be taken very seriously — and we must stop them before their crimes can multiply.

October 6:

Some might be tempted to dismiss these goals as fanatical or extreme. Well, they are fanatical and extreme — and they should not be dismissed. Our enemy is utterly committed. As Zarqawi has vowed, “We will either achieve victory over the human race or we will pass to the eternal life.” And the civilized world knows very well that other fanatics in history, from Hitler to Stalin to Pol Pot, consumed whole nations in war and genocide before leaving the stage of history. Evil men, obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience, must be taken very seriously — and we must stop them before their crimes can multiply.

You get the point.

It’s cut’n'paste speech-making. In fact, this isn’t really speech-making or “discussion” at all but more of a lecture tour. I suppose it boils down to the fact that Bush is having to draw so much fire from other issues - Katrina, Miers, Libby - by hooting about terror and evil time and time again, that his speechwriters are knackered.

After all, there’s only so much Bush needs to say in such a speech anyway; only so many buttons he can press. It makes you wonder if the speeches are written by software. You build a database of stock paragraphs on varying subjects. Then, when you need a speech, all you have to do is give the software some key words - “September 11″, “evil”, “terror” - and it picks paragraphs containing those phrases. Some lowly wonk writes a few personal remarks to go in at the top and you’re laughing.

(By the way, I thought it was very sweet of the person who “transcribed” the speech yesterday to keep the heckler in:

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Mr. President, war is terror.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

Unless that was cut and pasted as well.)

I don’t know how much of a phenomenon this is with Bush. The two speeches were given to two different audiences in two states. However, in the age of mass media, the internet (both transcripts are on the White House website), and a President who memorably stumbles when trying to say “Islamofascism”, making the comparison is easy. Maybe if you ran through enough of his speeches looking for key phrases you’d find more instances.

In UK we’re used to the repetition of buzz phrases (”respect agenda”, “evil ideology”, “parent power”, “the many not the few”, “stakeholder society”, “active citizenship”, “platitudinous invertebrates”) until every last drop of even the slightest inherent meaning is wrung from them, but not whole sections of a speech repeated in another speech.

So who was yesterday’s speech intended for? The invited audience in Virginia, a media who had heard much the same speech three weeks earlier, or an embattled administration needing to fill some airtime as a distraction (the “Karl Rove to remain under investigation” story broke during the speech)?

And I did like this as well:

Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy teaches that innocent individuals can be sacrificed to serve a political vision.

It’s right up their with Tony Blair’s

There is no justification for Iran or any other country interfering in Iraq.

Posted on October 29th, 2005 at 2:55 pm

See also • The Chuckle Brotherhood • The Times: How No 10 spun schools a line • There ain’t no justice, just us		Permalink • Trackback • Subscribe By Email • Print This Post • • •
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