The President made a very interesting and troubling speech last night on the anniversary of the Sept 11 attacks. In it he said we were are war... "one on par with the World War II struggle against fascism and the Nazis". Yet the President did not ask that the country to sacrifice anything for this fight. What about cutting back on our oil consumption, or taxing gasoline and putting the money into a real program to move from oil to something else to power our autos or what about even reinstating the draft. In World War II the country rationed things like rubber and sugar and gasoline and every able man(and many women) were in the fight.

Back then the nation was united in winning the war and willing to give up things. But this is a "nice war" fought somewhere else and this administration does not want to tell us that we have sacrifice anything to help.

And then his defense of the war in Iraq was at its best somewhat political. Why give this speech on the anniversary of the attack on our country? Why tie Iraq with the war on terrorists? Most Americans agree that we must fight the terrorists and it is best to do that somewhere else, what they do not agree on is that our attacking Iraq is part of that fight. To tie them together is something that the country is not prepared to accept. But Karl Rove and Dick Cheney believe that if you say it enough times people will start to believe it.

Not this time.

Here is part of the CNN story on the speech and the response by the Democrats.

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Bitter partisan squabbles engulfed Capitol Hill on Tuesday sparked by President Bush's 9/11 speech Monday night that was not supposed to be political.

Eight weeks before elections that will determine control of the House and Senate, Democrats charged that the president was "playing politics" with the memories of 9/11, and Republicans questioned whether Democrats are more interested in protecting terrorists than the country.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, on Tuesday accused President Bush of trying to tap into the emotions renewed by the 9/11 anniversary to boost flagging support for the war in Iraq.

In his speech, Bush portrayed the war in Iraq as part of a "struggle for civilization" with terrorists -- one on par with the World War II struggle against fascism and the Nazis. Democrats strongly contest that idea, saying that the Iraq war is a distraction from the global drive to stop terrorism.

"We learned that America must confront threats before they reach our shores, whether those threats come from terrorist networks or terrorist states," Bush said. "I am often asked why we are in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The answer is that the regime of Saddam Hussein was a clear threat."

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Tuesday the president wasn't "picking fights" when he brought up the Iraq war, according to The Associated Press.

"This was not a speech that was designed to single out anybody for partisan reasons, but gave the president's honest reflections and reactions to what has happened since September 11, 2001," Snow said, according to the AP. "The president decided that yesterday wasn't a day for partisanship."

But the speech, Reid charged, was partisan, meant only for his administration. Bush did not speak for the nation, Reid said, unlike the time the president stood on the rubble of the World Trade Center five years ago and used a bullhorn to promise a quick response to the September 11 attacks.

"No bullhorn, only the bully pulpit of his office, which he used to defend an unpopular war in Iraq and to launch clumsily disguised barbs at those who disagree with his policies there," Reid said.

"By focusing on Iraq in the manner he did, the president engaged in an all-too-familiar administration tactic: conflate and blur the war in Iraq with the response to 9/11," he added.

House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, D-California, also denounced Bush's speech, citing a Senate Intelligence Committee report released last week that said that the CIA had dismissed tied between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

"In fact, the war in Iraq has made our effort to defeat terrorism and terrorists more difficult," Pelosi said in a written statement. "Last night's speech demonstrated that the president will go to any lengths to distract attention from his failures in Iraq, which have diverted focus from the war on terrorism."