Several years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a fund-raising event at which former Texas governor, the late Ann Richards, spoke. Most of what she had to say about Bush, who at that time had just defeated her in her second run for governor, was pretty funny, but in a more serious moment she predicted that he would one day make a run for the White House. Pay attention and you will see, she said, that if he’s good at anything, he’s good at saying the same things over and over and over, and his ability to do so is very effective. (I paraphrase loosely from memory here.)

We’ve seen plenty of examples of that in the past six years, but last Thursday’s address was certainly a prime one. Bush’s persistence in trotting out the threat of Al Queda terrorism to justify the war in Iraq may be the worst case in modern American history of the tail wagging the dog, but that’s his story and he’s sticking to it.

I watched the address last Thursday night, not so much because I expected him to say anything new or different, but because I wanted to look for some sign—any sign—that the quagmire Iraq has become is weighing heavily on the man who got us into it. (I admit I was thinking about Lyndon Johnson, back when it was clear that his escalation of the war in Viet Nam was a disastrous mistake. Say what you will about Johnson, the Viet Nam war ate him alive, and you could see it in his face and hear it in his voice.)

I wanted to see a president who is having many sleepless nights, who realizes he has the blood of thousands on his hands, who knows he has lost the support of the American public for this war, who has doubts, who is deeply troubled, who is beginning to at least question whether he made a mistake.

But what we want and what we get are so often two different things.

What we get is a president who seems completely oblivious that he has by and large lost the American people’s support for this war, a president who is either in complete denial or is completely obtuse. This is not a president who appears to be losing much sleep over anything. In fact, he argued that American troops needed to be in Iraq, otherwise “Iraqis will face a deep humanitarian crisis.” (More dog-wagging.)

Was it just me? Did any of you see or hear anything to make you think Bush understands that this war is literally a life and death matter for thousands upon thousands, and that it weighs heavily on him?

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