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war - just like in the previews

I had assumed that the 48 hours was from midnight Monday to midnight Wednesday.
My friend said, don't be silly. It's from Bush's primetime announcement on Monday, to primetime on Wednesday.
There was also the additional data point that, just as the entire content of Bush's Monday speech had been pre-announced,
it had also been pre-announced that he would make a second speech, a war speech to the American public, and that as he was speaking, bombs would be dropping.

In yesterday's Prepare for a whole new level of reality TV, Andrew Ryan wrote:

Bush was scary in that 15-minute TV ultimatum, with cold, monotonal delivery and stony glint. He had the crazy eyes. It was a sobering cowboy dictum from a Texas president: Take yer boys and clear out. Or we're coming in. You could almost hear John Wayne whooping it up from beyond the grave.

It's entirely unlikely something is going to happen at 8:16 p.m. -- even Americans can't be that obvious

He was both right, and wrong. Apparently, they waited a whole 90 minutes, and then the entire event unrolled just as foretold by the television prophets.

Google News top story Bush Announces Start Of War As Baghdad's Sky Lights Up says

About 90 minutes after the expiration of Bush's 48-hour ultimatum for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his sons to leave Iraq or face war, the U.S. military struck a site near Baghdad with cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs. Fire from Iraqi antiaircraft batteries lit up the sky.

Minutes later, Bush made this announcement in a televised address to the American people from the White House: "My fellow citizens, at this hour American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger."

Bush, who warned the campaign could be longer and more difficult than many predict, continued: "On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign."

U.S. officials said the location was believed to be a "target of opportunity" where "elements of the Iraqi leadership" were meeting, including possibly Saddam himself. Saddam survived the attack and spoke on Iraqi television several hours later.

This is awaiting publishing until the Dal systems where I host my blog are back up. posted by Richard at 06:20 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)