right on bro!

Who watched George W. Bush’s speech tonight? I caught most of it. The speech itself was well-written, but the way Bush presented himself totally blew it up.

About halfway into the speech, GW kept moving off to his left and stepping away from the mic. The camera would pan with him, back and forth, and suddenly I found myself distracted by his posture rather than his words.

Also…when he started talking about things that the federal government was going to do, I got totally turned off. I’m not sure if I’m reading into it too much, but he seemed on the verge of that Texas good-ol-boy smirk - the kind of shit that apparently works real well in every state between Nevada and Pennsylvania, but that I find unpresidential and condescending. “Lookie here, boy, here’s what Uncle George is gonna do for you.”

I think a president’s supposed to convey authority and statesmanship. GW sure doesn’t come across as either one.

And in every single goddamn speech, GW always makes reference to a terror attack. I am, quite frankly, tired of the references. He’s had three years to improve the nation’s security and disaster response since then. Either he has done it already, or he hasn’t. And it looks like….he hasn’t.

In other news, I called the Apple store in Santa Monica today to see if they had the iPod nano in stock, but nobody has the black 4gb version. What’s the deal with product shortages on product launches? The marketing theory goes, you create buzz and coolness this way, right? “I got the iPod and you don’t have one, nor can you get one, so you suck and I am cool.” Plus you end up extending the trendiness a little bit longer because if everyone got one, we’d all have nothing to talk about.

How do we, as consumers, turn the tables on that? You want the product because you like it, not because it’s cool or trendy. Otherwise, do you really want to be a fanboy for the corporate marketing machine forever?