Demagogue

Now this is the kind of thing I like to read, New Republic's Ryan Lizza describes how Bush's speech last night reminded him of a scene in a Monty Python movie-- the "Bring Out Your Dead/I'm not Dead Yet/Oh Yes You Are" scene from The Holy Grail, one of my personal favorite movies of all time.

Watching Bush last night reminded me of the famous scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail in which the Dead Collector pushes a cart through a plague-ridden village collecting bodies.John Cleese throws a corpse on the Dead Collector's pile, but the corpse protests that he's very much alive:

The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Body: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Large Man with Dead Body: Yes he is.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not.
The Dead Collector: He isn't.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm getting better.
Large Man with Dead Body: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
The Dead Collector: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I don't want to go on the cart.
Large Man with Dead Body: Oh, don't be such a baby.
The Dead Collector: I can't take him.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I feel fine.

Last night, George W. Bush played the role of the Dead Body That Claims It Isn't. Going into the speech, he looked like a political corpse.
...
Just as the dead cart was about to be wheeled away, the president popped up on TV and proclaimed, "I feel fine." What was striking about Bush's speech was its audacity and refusal to bend to changed political circumstances.

...remember what happens to the Dead Body That Claims It Isn't at the end of that scene? The Dead Collector clubs him to death and carts off the corpse.