Dream Americans

A desperate and strained sounding rhetoric as Bush dreams up, addresses and speaks for spectral Americans:

The American people know the difference between responsible and irresponsible debate when they see it. They know the difference between honest critics who question the way the war is being prosecuted and partisan critics who claim that we acted in Iraq because of oil, or because of Israel, or because we misled the American people. And they know the difference between a loyal opposition that points out what is wrong, and defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right.

When our soldiers hear politicians in Washington question the mission they are risking their lives to accomplish, it hurts their morale. In a time ofwar, we have a responsibility to show that whatever our political differences at home, our nation is united and determined to prevail. And wehave a responsibility to our men and women in uniform who deserve to know that once our politicians vote to send them into harm's way, our supportwill be with them in good days and in bad days and we will settle fornothing less than complete victory. (Applause.)

We also have an opportunity this year to show the Iraqi people what responsible debate in a democracy looks like. In a free society, there is only one check on political speech and that's the judgment of the people. So I ask all Americans to hold their elected leaders to account, and demand adebate that brings credit to our democracy not comfort to our adversaries.

It's not going to be a successful hypnotism, but it scarcely matters. A mere formality at this point. The spectral citizenry can be made to speak back. Robot soliders, robot voters:

New York is in danger of being sued by the federal government over continuing delays in bringing new voting machines to the state and complying with other requirements of the Help America Vote Act, officials said Thursday.

And a spokesman for the state Board of Elections said New York is so far behind in meeting the federal requirements that localities across the state may have to trot out their old lever-action voting machines this year for at least one more election cycle.

The HAVA legislation was adopted by Congress in the wake of the vote-counting fiasco in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. The legislation requires states to modernize voting systems and provides funding for such things as new voting machines. New York has trailed behind all other states in meeting HAVA deadlines.