Our president speaks to the Diet (Japanese Parliament):

My trip to Asia begins here in Japan for an important reason. (Applause.) It begins here because for a century and a half now, America and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times. From that alliance has come an era of peace in the Pacific. And in that peace, the world has witnessed the broad advance of prosperity and democracy throughout East Asia.

The century and a half bit could have been a slip, but the rest is unforgiveable.

Vietnam, East Timor, Cambodia, China, and Myanmar were never there. Creepy.

But the speech just gets better after that. It's this whole other reality. It's almost too much to handle. It must be some new strategy for pre-empting criticism: mystify everyone until they float around in the same haze that Bush's speechwriters do.

Bizarre. Surreal. Depressing. Extremely dangerous.