He knew what to expect and came prepared

Finally, one of those solid, pragmatic, common-sensical Americans that appeared to be a vanishing species of late, pops up at Bush's VFW speech in Salt Lake City.

Caption on this pic, which ran in Canada's National Post, reads:

Bill Moyer, 73, wears a "Bullshit Protector" flap over his ear while President George W. Bush addresses the Veterans of Foreign Wars. (AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac)

[Hat tip to Atrios]

I dare the NYTimes or the Washington Post to run this photo. According to Elisabeth Bumiller of the Times everything was rah-rah inside the convention center:

The veterans' audience of 15,000 people greeted Mr. Bush with loud applause in this heavily Republican state, where Mr. Bush received the highest percentage of the popular vote in the 2004 election. Many veterans said they were supportive of Mr. Bush's course in Iraq.

That's not to say that everybody was on board with Bush's Iraq cockup. But you have to get to graph 17 of a 22-paragraph article to get this mild remonstrance:

"I think the president was listening too much to his secretary of defense," said Dennis Guthrie of Redmond, Ore., a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars national council. "He should have been listening to Colin Powell."

Colin Powell? I don't remember Colin Powell saying much of anything, at least not in public. Behind closed doors, he couldn't have been too effective. Bush knew perfectly well that Powell would do nothing to jeopardize the highest goal of Powell's State Department career--protecting his own position and reputation.

Perhaps Mr. Moyer would have been more at home with the 1000+ protestors, including Salt Lake City's Dem mayor Rocky Anderson, who gathered in nearby Pioneer Park to send Bush a message about his war.

Certainly the bullshit was flying fast and furious inside Salt Palace Convention Center. How does Dear Leader believe that his repetition of the same threadbare lies and rationalizations of a year ago could possibly be seriously considered today? Does he realize that he doesn't look resolute, merely mulish and delusional? There is starting to be a quality of strident desperation to these speeches:

"They have a strategy, and part of that strategy is they're trying to shake our will. They kill the innocent. They kill women and children, knowing that the images of their brutality will horrify civilized peoples. Their goal is to drive nations into retreat so they can topple governments across the Middle East, establish Taliban-like regimes, and turn that region into a launching pad for more attacks against our people."

Funny, but wasn't there something recently about the Pentagon trying to hide images of brutality that would horrify civilized peoples? Oh yes, that Abu Ghraib thing. Old news.

And what was that about "toppling governments" to establish Taliban-like regimes? From what we're hearing about the draft constitution being debated in Iraq, the Taliban would approve. And for this, we've spent hundreds of billions and spilled untold amounts of American and Iraqi blood--to topple a government and create a "launching pad for more attacks" against us. Perhaps we might also remember our signal failure to actually defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan while we're at it.

But don't relax yet. A Bush speech isn't complete without the obligatory 9/11 product tie-in:

"All these steps to protect the homeland have made it safer, but we're not yet safe. Terrorists in foreign lands still hope to attack our country. They still hope to kill our citizens. The lesson of September the 11th, 2001, is that we must confront threats before they fully materialize."

Ooooh! If Bush was a man, he wouldn't be sowing fear every time he opens his mouth. Maybe he should just calm down and read his Bible: Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day.

While he had a captive FVW audience, Bush took the opportunity to throw in yet another argument for the renewal of the PATRIOT Act and a plug for his administration's handling of veterans' affairs. If this sat well with veterans who returned from their wars whole, I still wonder about those who've not been so fortunate, some of them in Walter Reed now. What do they think about Bush's attempts to cut benefits or the unconscionable delays in granting disability benefits to grievously wounded vets?

After soaking in the applause of the adoring Kool-Aid drinkers, the Presidential Bubble rolled out of Salt Lake City for Idaho so the president could get a well-earned respite from the dreary nagging of Cindy Sheehan and her traitorous minions camped in Crawford. (I'll bet Bush would love to clap a burqa over her!)

Traveling with Bush in the Presidential Bubble was the conservative Republican governor of Idaho, Dirk Kempthorne. Kempthorne won his first gubernatorial race with 68 percent of the vote. When he ran for reelection in 2002, his margin was down to 56 percent against Democrat Jerry Brady. Brady was a serious candidate: former newspaper publisher, friend of Howard Dean, one-time aide to Frank Church, a former Peace Corps volunteer, and his grandfather was governor of Idaho.

Here's where it gets interesting: Kempthorne has announced he will not run for reelection in 2006 and Brady has already voiced his intention to run again.

So it's entirely possible that Bush decided to risk his fool neck on a mountain bike in Idaho not just to boost the fortunes of Tamarack Resort's investors, but to shore up the uncertain loyalties of Republican voters in yet another Western state.

Until I checked their association website, I hadn't realized that Democratic governors preside over 12 red states vs. 10 blue states. In the western states, Democratics rule in Arizona, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. Brian Schweitzer's victory in Montana in 2004 has been held up as a model for how to craft a winning Democratic message in red state territory.

The Republicans may be nearly unassailable in the Bible Belt South, but they'll have a hard time winning the White House without the conservative West. And it looks like voters out west have started wearing Mr. Moyer's "bullshit protectors."

Fall Fashion Update! They saw a need and met it. A few sites now offer their downloadable interpretations of Mr. Moyer's essential earwear, including The Talent Show and wiseass.org. The BSPs on the Talent Show site are very good facsimiles, right down to the "cooties" header. (Via The Daou Report, ricocheting off BoingBoing.)