President Bush just wrapped up his address to the General Assembly. The transcript is not yet up on the White House website. I’ll present some more analysis later, but I just wanted to give some quick thoughts.
It was impossible to watch this speech and not be overwhelemd by the amount of attention paid to terrorism. The President immediately launched into the topic and didn’t relent until at least half-way through his remarks. And, even after that point, he tied every issue — democracy, global health, and trade — back to security. This session is bracketed by high-level events on Africa and the Millennium Development Goals, but those issues saw little daylight in President Bush’s address.
Phases that weren’t mentioned (at least according to my notes and memory): “climate change” (or even “energy security”), “Millennium Development Goals,” “peacekeeping,” or “food crisis.”
His address will stand in shocking contrast to the remarks delivered by other leaders. In fact, right now, President Sarkozy, on behalf of the EU, is speaking in an entirely different tone and with an entirely different focus. Someone that I’m watching with notes that he uses “we” a lot more.