SOTU

Once again, I'm glad I didn't have any alcohol nearby, or I'd have woken up this morning with a horrible hangover not woken up.

This year's speech was better than his previous ones; Bush spoke for over 20 minutes, he didn't use any human props in the audience and he didn't garble his way around many tough words (probably because he didn't use any, but it's still a plus. They're learning. Baby steps).

That said, the content of his speech was the same sack of lies and bullshit he's been spinning every year. Taxes, healthcare, Iran, FISA - he can't tell the truth. He also had his typical petulant tone - "Congress MUST pass this bill, or I'm going to throw a temper tantrum." Never mind his threat to veto anything that came across his desk that he doesn't like.

It's more clear than ever that Bush and his cronies the Republican party are holding this country back from moving forward. We need to throw them out and remember how to move forward, together.

Can anyone tell me what happened to Mars? MARS!!!!

On the Democratic side, Sebelius made some great points in Obama's post-partisan style, but it seemed a little laundry list and was a little lacking on narrative when compared to Jim Webb's response last year. She is quite stately though.

Not Amused

The NYT.

The White House spin ahead of George W. Bush’s seventh State of the Union
address was that the president would make a bipartisan call to revive his
domestic agenda with “bold and innovative concepts.” The problem with that was
obvious last night — in six years, Mr. Bush has shown no interest in
bipartisanship, and his domestic agenda was set years ago, with huge tax cuts
for wealthy Americans and crippling debt for the country.

Link.

2007 State of the Union Rebuttal

Jim Webb is giving the response to the State of the Union. Sweet. Brian Williams noted that Webb wrote his own speech. Sweet.

Webb hopes Bush is serious about improving education and healthcare for everyone, as well as restoring New Orleans. Bush has mentioned energy reform 7 times, but this is the first time it will happen because Democrats are in charge.

The two areas where Democrats and Republicans stand in contrast are the economy and foreign policy.

The economy shows us two different countries. The stock market and corporate profits are at all time highs, but the benefits are being fairly shared. Wages and salaries are at all time lows even though productivity is high. Medical and education costs have skyrocketed. The middle class, our historic backbone, is losing its place. The government has a duty to deal with these concerns. We should measure our society by Main Street, not Wall Street. "We're working to get things done, for the right people, for the right reasons."

Bush's War in Iraq was a strategic mistake, would divert resources from the real war and leave us exposed. Americans serve because they love the U.S. They trusted our leaders because they hoped they would be right and value their lives. They gave their loyalty, but in return they deserve sound minds, responsibility and care. Bush entered this war recklessly and ignored the sound minds. The damage this war has done is horrendous. We need a new direction.

It falls to Congress to take action on both of these fronts. Webb notes that Teddy Roosevelt faced a similar problem, with robber barrons tearing the country apart - he couldn't keep a straight face when he said this - and TR counseled the people against them. Eisenhower brought the Korean war to an end. Therefore, we are calling on Bush to take similar action. If he does, we will follow, if not, we will show him a new way.

Sweet.

2007 State of the Union

On NBC. Russert's going on about respect, that both sides need to be respectful. He either doesn't have a clue what the Republicans did over the past 12 years, or he's a willful patsy.

Bush is coming in, doesn't look as smug as he usually does. He's followed by Boehner and Reid. Russert's obsessing about how close Bush is to the Democrats on immigration. Grow up, Timmeh, they're not the same.

Bush is trying to make small talk with Pelosi: "Ready to go?" Weird. He's definitely uncomfortable (see: Merkel).

Bush is happy that we've got a female speaker. Hooray.

Bush "decisions are hard, courage is needed." More talk about facing enemies. Does everything have to be a battle? Bush thinks everyone is called to serve the same purposes: to grow prosperity, spend money wisely, keep faith with those we have said we would serve. He thinks bipartisanship will solve everything.

Bush thinks wages are rising and inflation is low, and we need to keep it that way with more enterprise, not more government. He has three economic reforms.

1. Balancing the federal budget. How does he intend to do this without increasing taxes? We need spending discipline. He's using fuzzy math. He says his new budget will eliminate the deficit in 5 years. I'm cringing at the thought of what he's going to try and cut
2. Earmarks. 2005 - earmarks were 13,o00, $18 bn. Whose party was in charge?! Let's reform the budget process and make all earmarks public, cut earmarks in half. Let me note that this is a Democratic idea and they want to do away with all earmarks
3. Entitlements. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. We're failing to keep them sound - Ted Kennedy looks like his head is going to explode - we haven't found it in ourselves to act. With goodwill we can fix these programs. This is clearly the Green Lantern school of policy

NCLB is the greatest thing ever. Students are now performing better. Those who haven't dropped out, I guess. We should give families the right to opt out of failing schools - helped along by NCLB - and give them funds to do so. No Dems applauded either this or Bush's entitlement plan.

Everyone should have affordable health care. Government should care for elderly and disabled. Private health insurance is the best way to go. Many Americans can't afford insurance, therefore Bush is proposing an across the board tax deduction for health insurance. This is the stupidest idea ever. Just make all medical expenses tax deductible, idiot. His plan encourages people to spend less on healthcare. Second proposal is to give federal funds to states that provide private coverage to the uninsured poor and sick. Never mind risk pooling. Bush wants more health savings accounts, price transparency - not from the insurance companies, mind you - and more tort reform. Leahy looked amused at that. Best decisions are made by patients and doctors. Except, of course, when in concerns Terry Schiavo and a Republican pander to the fundies is in order.

Immigration time. According to Bush we need better immigration controls, so we're going to improve our border security but establish a guest worker program, so border agents can hunt down drug dealers and terrorists. We need to take care of existing illegal immigrants. Bush is encouraging Congress to pass a bill he can sign.

Now we're hearing more about how America is too dependent on foreign oil, like he said last year. I don't see any progress that the Republican 109th Congress made on that though. Time to move to clean, alternative energy, and... wait for it... ethanol!!!! Boondoggle! Bush wants to reduce gas usage by 20% in the next 10 years. I tell you we can do 40%+ if we used foreign technologies. And the backslide: we must step up American oil supply. Looks like he's finally caved on global warming though, but he didn't make any attempt at doing anything about it.

More crap about up or down votes on judges. Nevermind his firing all prosecutors that were investigating Republican corruption.

Terror Time! Bush just referred to the U.S. as "the Homeland." Wow. Hello, Mother Russia. We must take the fight to the enemy. Oh no, we've uncovered Al-Qaeda using anthrax - been a while since we heard about that one, guess it's time to put it back in the rotation - and the British - according to Bush - foiled a plot to blow up a plane. America is still at war and will always be at war. What does this mean for the War Powers Authorization? Come on, dictatorship can be fun from time to time! If the U.S. leaves, we will be losing and let them bring the fight to us. We must do our best to protect the American people.

Free people are not drawn to violent ideologies, so we advance our interests by - violently - helping moderates - Ahmed Chalabi - to advance their rights. We increase our security by doing so. Lebanon drove out the occupiers. This speech was written before all the protests and violence this week. Iraq had three - count em, three, suckers! - elections, therefore, Democracy(tm) is on the rise. Iran and Al Qaeda are ruining all the fun in Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq. Shi'ite death squads were formed with Iran's help - I'm pretty sure it was our help, but Bush left that out - and did evil. We can turn these events towards victory.

We're carrying out a new strategy of Iraqification. The Iraqis aren't ready yet though. They haven't been ready for the past 3 years, but readiness is around the corner, I'm sure. They just need one last shot at it. That, or however many one last shots it takes. Iraq knows our commitment isn't open-ended - it will end when Bush leaves office - so they will stand up. They will share oil revenues among all Iraqi citizens. Why is that even an issue? Why even bring it up? First we need to secure Baghdad. Wow. He's just admitted that Baghdad is out of control. If we can't control Baghdad, how are we going to control the entire country? According to Bush, if we leave, extremists would take over and the region could be drawn into the conflict. Chaos is the enemy's greatest ally. Um... by this logic haven't we been aiding the enemy? Anyway, we must spare America this outcome. Bush is the decider, and he's decided the decision. Now it's up to Congress to get behind him.

Bush has proposed a bipartisan congressional committee on the war on terror. I guess having the Republican and Connecticut for Lieberman parties makes it a bipartisan committee. Now he wants to expand the size of the army and marine corp. We also need to establish a civilian reserve corp. I think he's trying to privatize the army. This is easily the worst idea ever. Hahahah, now he said we're operating in Iraq with the support of the U.N. Iran, of course, is the enemy. We're pursuing diplomacy elsewhere, like Korea, Burma, Cuba and Belarus. Sure, buddy, take another shot at Russia.

Bush is also concerned about the genocide in Darfur. The U.S. must also assume the responsibility to provide AIDS and malaria relief in Africa. Does he think we've forgotten his talk before about balancing the budget without increasing taxes? Bush thinks our greatest strength is our kindness. He's got Dikembe Mutombo in the gallery sitting next to Pickles and it's pretty funny to see how tall he is next to her. He's a success story. So is the woman who founded a child safety company and sold it to Disney. WTF? This is the state of the union? We're in deep. So is the subway hero who pulled a man out of the way of an oncoming train. Look, I applaud this, but we as a nation really have much more important things to be talking about. I can't believe Bush said compassion is in abundance with Dick Cheney in the same camera shot.

There were a lot of points during the speech where the Democrats did not applaud at all. Good for them.

To sum up, Bush spent another State of the Union making platitudes and not really saying anything, as well as not offering up anything new in the way of policies or direction. I'm thankful that we finally have a party in control of Congress that can finally stop the slow train wreck our country has been on for the past six years.