Wednesday, June 29, 2005
They were ordered not to applaud...yeah, that's the ticket
Posted by:
Hammer / 2:30 PM
CQ takes a wild guess while
live blogging Bush's address:
7:06 - It appears to me that the soldiers at Fort Bragg have orders not to react. Bush has not paused much in his delivery, as he normally would if he expected applause or cheers, such as a stump speech. His pace, therefore, is better than normal.
I would expect professional soldiers to be able to follow such a simple order for 30 minutes. They
didn't:
The sole supportive interruption followed a sequence in which Bush built to the line, "We will stay in the fight until the fight is won." NBC's Kelly O'Connell, reporting from Fort Bragg, told Williams afterward that the applause appeared to have been "triggered by members of the president's advance team" and that once they began clapping, the soldiers joined in.
So, which is it? Did the soldiers violate an order not to applaud? Or were they just not feeling the urge to applaud such a tired, banal speech?