"Madam Speaker" and "Congratulations on the Democrat Majority"
This blog is primarily going to be a commentary on specific things the President says during the State of the Union. I'm just going to be typing sort of stream of thought as he says things, though I will be pausing my TV to help in my typing. Praise be to Allah for the magic of Tivo. I'll comment on a variety of things, but mostly the truthiness, intelligence, and plausbility of the things he says. Before the SOTU (pronounced, So Two) begins, I'd like to make a point about the State of the Union. No matter which President gives it, it is largely a whole bunch of BS. The President is telling the roughly 35% of Americans who tune in to watch exactly what he thinks they want to hear. So it really shouldn't be called the state of the union as much as should be called the, "Opportunity for the President to tell the people what he thinks they want to hear but in reality bore them to death." It is with this very low opinion of the SOTU that I begin. The President is entering now. Ooo...goody! Nancy Pelosi is wearing a very festive green get up. But it doesn't have anything on Laura's "you may hate my husband but i'm still hot" red dress.
He's trying to be very accomodating and sucking up to the democrats. This is largely because of political reality. For the first time in his presidency he is realizing that he has to be bipartisan. Or at least that is what he wants us to believe. Personally I don't buy it. He has some things that he and the Democrats can accomplish together, like immigration. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean he's going to be any less stubborn on the issues on which he has already made up his mind.
"Balance the Federal Budget"
And afterwords we shall make Senator Hillary Clinton President Bush's second wife through a marriage of consent. It's not going to happen.
"Immigration, laws that are fair and borders that are secure. To secure our border we're doubling the size of our border patrol."
Guest worker program, yadda yadda. The one issue he and democrats can somewhat agree on. Republicans were less than enthused about his immigration reform, you could see it in their faces.
The one smart thing he did say that I couldn't agree with more was that he was going to hold employers accountable. When you cut off demand for these workers in America, they'll stop coming. The government needs to make examples of those who employ illegals by giving them serious fines or jail times.
"Free from Dependence on Foreign Oil"
Who doesn't agree with this? This statement is juat a crowd pleaser. No one likes our dependence on foreign oil but it is going to be years before any of this becomes a reality. Everyone likes to talk about it but for the most part its a lot of hot air.
"Reduce gasoline usage by 20% in the next ten years"
That means 2 percent a year. As the President says, we need to have 35 billion gallons of renewable fuels available by 2017. Depending on how many people start driving hybrids or more fuel efficient cars, this one actually could happen but it would require serious change in consumer habits.
"To win the war on terror we must take the fight to the enemy"
The interesting thing about this statement is that the entire house stood up, not just the Republicans. Democrats know they need to be seen as being tougher on terror and I think their support here projects that.
"For the sake of our society we must [help people build democracies]"
Personally, I couldn't disagree more. For the sake of our society we must not interfere in the affairs of other governments except to protect ourselves against threats they pose to us. It is not our duty to build nations, only to destroy those within nations would dare to oppose us. The President really believes that this will keep America safer. He believes that by creating more democracies, especially in the Middle East, there will be less terrorism. I don't agree but I respect his opinion and agree to disagree with him.
"We are sending more than 20,000 army soldiers and Marines to Iraq...Many in this chamber understand that America must not fail in Iraq because they consequences of failure would be griveous".
Unfortunately his remedy for preventing failure is not the correct course of action. America needs to decide between full engagement and complete withdrawal. The President's plan is a half-hearted attempt to solve the problem without admitting that we were failing in the first place or that we were the ones who created the instability in Iraq in the first place.
For more on this, http://www.insidevandy.com/drupal/node/2438. Or you can just type in www.shamelessplug.com into your URL field.
"Whatever you voted for [on Iraq] you did not vote for failure"
This one really hit home with me. I agree with the President. Democrats, who once voted for the war, knowing that the objective was a new regime have largely abandoned the President at this point. I find this to be quite traitorous. If you vote for an objective, you have an obligation to politically support that objective and you can't bail out just because things are going poorly or it is politically convenient. Or actually if you're apolitically savy legislator,you will...but I'm still going to call you a pansy!
"Tonight that cause goes on, God Bless"
Indeed it does. Despite what many people think, I do not think Bush is a lame duck. He still has much he can accomplish by working with the Democratic Congress. Though the things they disagree on are numerous and ideoligcally vast, there are many things that they can compromise on that will benefit the American people. That is the fundamental art of politics that is missing from Washington these days. Compromise. The President's speech was an attempt to extend an olive branch to the Democrats and I think they did accept to a certain degree. Both the Democrats and Bush have an interest in getting things done in his final years in office and I think that political necessity will prove to be the mother of innovation on capitol hill in the final years of the Bush presidency.
