What do you expect from a man born with a silver foot in his mouth?

President Bush chose to postpone, until after the holidays, his long-awaited speech on Iraq. Why would anyone assume that anything Bush says is going to (a) break new strategic ground, or (b) quell the sectarian chaos, or (c) lodge in the American memory. He has delivered dozens of speeches on Iraq over the past few years, most of them instantly forgotten, with nary a phrase that can be invoked years from now as testaments to either his eloquence or prescience.

• Dick Polman