Today's Washington Post features a
review of last night's Bush speech by Tom Shales, their TV reviewer. If you don't regularly read his stuff, you are missing out in general, but his looks at political events are universally excellent. The highight, though, came at the end... read on.
Shales notes that Bush's speech was not carried by the WB, which showed the Wizard of Oz instead. Finding some delicious irony, read how he makes the comparison:
Over on the smaller networks that have no news departments, regular programming continued without interruption, since the president's speech was not aired. The WB happened to be showing "The Wizard of Oz," which once aired opposite a speech by Ronald Reagan... Bush seems less likely to be likened to Oz except to the extent that the wizard is at one point denounced as "a humbug."
Moments later, told he is "a very bad man," the great and powerful Oz says, "Oh no, my dear, I'm a very good man. I'm just a very bad wizard."
That was a stroke of genius.