When will the musical version open on Broadway?

While on my way to pick up Annabelle at Youth Services a little while ago, I was listening to "All Things Considered" on the radio. I tuned in halfway through a report on an interview that NPR's Juan Williams conducted with President Bush yesterday. I heard this and just about drove off the road:

MR. WILLIAMS: All right. You know, you mentioned timetables. NPR has a reporter embedded with the Minnesota National Guard in Iraq, and one of the soldiers there asked the question – says, my name is Specialist Ryan Schmidt (sp) from Forest Lake, Minnesota, and my question for you, Mr. President, is what if your plan for a troop surge to Baghdad does not work?" What do you think?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I would say to Ryan, I put it in place on the advice of a lot of smart people, particularly the military people who think it will work, and let us go into this aspect of the Iraqi strategy feeling it will work. But I will also assure Ryan that we're constantly adjusting to conditions on the ground.

Yes, yes, please, let's go into this "feeling" that it works! I'm sure that every disaster up to this point in this Charlie Foxtrot has to do with inadequate "feeling."

Is it just me, or does anybody else see the similarities between President George Bush and Professor Harold Hill? A con man waltzes into town, convinces the populace they have an imminent problem, and then offers the solution, which will enrich nobody but himself (and in this case, his cronies). When Bush talks about his strategy of victory through feeling, am I the only one who pictures those 2 tone-deaf River City youths singing, "I love music, Mommy" as they demonstrate the limitations inherent in the "think method" (which I have to believe is a first cousin to the "feel method")? I just wish Bush's brilliant plan to save us all had been a marching band. Or, hell, even a pool hall.



(With apologies to Robert Preston and Shirley Jones.)