State of the Union

ok, I know it's a little late, but I'm going to add my two cents anyway.

I'd really like to tear into the speech and analyze it, but it was so full of fluff that I'd rather wrap myself in it and take a nap. Here goes anyway. Bush started off the speech on the domestic front, citing that we can achieve economic prosperity by using discipline in spending (that actually goes a long way to getting at the problem now that I think about it), and that he'll cut the deficit in half by 2009. How're we going to do this? (besides all the spending he wants to allocate further down the road) 150 government programs are going to be axed. What really freaked me out about that line is that there were no specifics about which programs he was talking about. Bye bye non-abstinence sex-ed and healthcare. Wait, wait, wait, I know. The EPA and the IRS, who needs those in a Bush free market ownership society?

Bush then launched into his tirade about how evil frivolous malpractice suits are eating up the cost of healthcare and putting doctors out of business. I mean, come on. All those lawsuits account for only 2% of healthcare spending (courtesy of think progress, who did a great job of blogging the SOTU). Say it with me: tort reform is a non-issue. My dad's a doctor, and while malpractice insurance is annoying (what cost isn't?) he'll tell you that what's killing the industry are the HMOs and patient's insurance providers, not frivolous lawsuits. For those of you who are wondering as to why Republicans keep harping on this issue, it's relatively simple and leads back to the money. Trial lawyers provide Democrats with large donations. Take away their source of money and you make a big blow to Democratic monetary resources. By the way, Bush wants to fix healthcare by increasing spending.

For the record, he still can't pronounce nuclear.

We got a couple lines about the environment and getting energy here. Great, good bye arctic national wildlife reserve, there's black gold there. He said that his Clear Skies Act will cut pollution. This is nothing more than an out and out lie. Clear Skies calls for a reduction of greenhouse gas intensity (emissions/GDP), not an emissions reduction. George Orwell just ate his doublespeak for breakfast. He threw in a reference to clean coal, which again is misleading. The US does not consider CO2 to be an emission, yet it's the largest emissions gas we've got with the longest halflife. It's pretty depressing, but yeah, cleaning out the other emissions like SO2 will only speed up global warming.

Now for his dead on the doorstep baby, social security reform. try There Is No Crisis if you don't believe me, it would take me way too long to get into the math and the economics of it. Again, we were hit with platitude after platitude and no specific information about what Bush wants to do.

We then got the satisfy the evangelicals topics of a federal amendment for marriage, culture of life and no medical research, no activist judges (i've been thinking about what Bush said, but how is a judge who interprets the law not legislating from the bench? Subjectivity? Wasn't that a class in elementary school?), and faith based programs (more $$$).

He mentioned something that sounded like the Ryan-White act, does anybody (wait, no one's reading this yet :P) know what this is?

Now we move on to the foreign policy part of the speech, where Bush said we needed to have freedom from fear. I think terror alert was on fuschia today. Obviously we're winning the war on terror because they're fighting back. Therefore if we were losing they wouldn't fight back... are you listening, Osama? Speaking of which, he didn't get a single mention in the SOTU. So much for that part of the drinking game. Bush understands that peace can be achieved by eliminating fundamentalism. Too bad he hasn't looked in the mirror lately. Explain to me how he can say that America is a freedom loving nation where we have the freedom to do what we want 10 minutes after he says that gay couples shouldn't be allowed to marry? Helloooooo??? But according to Bush that's what "they" want, to impose a form of government and life on the people in their countries, which we would never never do. My favorite line was when he said that they want to create a state "in which a tiny group of rulers control every bit of life." Nuff said, chief.

Bush also laid out who we're going to be invading next. Yeah, it's Syria, Lebanon, Iran, with the usual DPRK mention. He basically spent this part of his speech asserting that preemptive warfare was necessary. Anyone remember how the last preemptive wars went? (hint hint, Japan) A free Iraq, which logically follows when 60% (at highest estimate) of the population vote for candidates they don't know, is also necessary for US safety. Apparently so is creating the largest influx of terrorism we've ever seen.

At the end of the speech I really began to believe that 'freedom' was a big club or spear that you could beat your enemy over the head with and he'd give up. Look for your very own freedom coming to a Walmart near you. Mine's on preorder. Freedom's not the weapon, fool, it's called hope, it's a psychological one, and it cuts both ways since people hope for different things (where's my monkey helper? yes, I see people cower at me when I talk about it... but that's for a different reason). Yes, freedom is anathema to Islamic fundamentalists because they'd rather have their society dictated by the Koran (replace Islamic with Christian and Koran with...). But freedom's not a weapon, it doesn't scare them, the idea of their way of life changing is what scares them.

Alright, let me make my bit on the Democratic response quick.

Sen. Reid took up domestic issues and SS. Everything he said was right and great, but his best line was to compare the deficit to a birth tax. I think everyone should start referring to deficit spending as a birth tax, it's great for framing. The line's also been immortalized in a poster over here, check it out.

Pelosi laid out a plan for how to win in Iraq, it involves 1. actually training security forces 2. diplomacy 3. fixing the Iraqi economy. These are all good points and they should be taken care of, but I still think that won't be enough to win. Still, we should be doing as much as we can, and under our current administration we're not doing squat.

Sorry, but I really couldn't take anything Pelosi said seriously because of whatever Botox/Thermage injections she's had in her forehead. I couldn't take my eyes off of it. Those things are supposed to move!

This was all dictated in one breath.