I tried really hard NOT to watch Bush's press conference last night but I couldn't help but watch at least the first 30 minutes before going to bed. I cringed at most of the things he had to say, especially the first 20 minutes or so when he was giving his opening statement. When he started to try to answer questions his famous verbal abilities began to shine. I can't stand the way that man answers questions. He doesn't actually answer the questions that are asked. He talks around the questions and ends up turning it into a policy statement. He has NOT gotten better at press conferences. That's probably why he's only held 12 in his entire presidency and only 3 in prime time. I wasn't pleased with anything he had to say last night. After about 30 minutes of listening to him, I turned off the TV, rolled over, and went to sleep. This morning while reading The Washington Post I found Tom Shales' review of Bush's speech. I usually don't care for many of the things Tom Shales has to say about movies or TV shows, but he was right on target with his review of the speech. I suggest you check it out sometime. I think you'll agree.

Lately, the war in Iraq has been compared to the war in Vietnam. I was very young during the Vietnam war but I do remember it and learned about the tactics used during that war. I would say it's a fair assessment to agree that the Iraq war is our Vietnam. The Vietnam war was the war that changed wars for the future. It wasn't the traditional war we were used to. We were used to having lots of troops on large battlefields shooting directly at other troops. In Vietnam that changed. The resorted to chemicals, terrorist type warfare. That has carried over into our current war. It's sad but it's happening. Didn't our armed forces learn anything from those previous wars. Maybe they did, I don't know. What I do know is that the first two weeks of April have been the deadliest of the war so far. More then the first entire month of the war. In the first two weeks of April, 89 people have lost their lives in Iraq. When will it be too much? When will it stop? What are we doing there in the first place? The reasons given to this point are too flimsy to support this much loss of life. Let the waring factions fight it out and kill each other. It's really none of our business. I don't think we should be there and I don't think we should stay after June 30, 2004. And on top of all that we have spent WAY too much money on this thing. Our troops are spread very thin. I know I'm rambling here but I guess I'm just really tired of hearing about it everyday. Hearing today that the first two weeks of April have been the deadliest has really struck me. We should really get out of Iraq as soon as possible. The time to bring this to end has come.