Not a Prelude?

I had to laugh at the title of this CS Monitor column: Bush speech not a 'prelude to bellicose foreign policy', subtitled Bush Sr., others, say inaugural speech not start of 'new militarism'. Well, obviously it's not a prelude, we're already four years into the bellicose foreign policy. As an unnamed White House official states in the article "it's not a discontinuity ... but an acceleration."