January 21, 2004
A Defensive State of the Union Address
About the only statement about the current state of affairs that rung out to me during the speech was the President’s belief that the economy is strong and getting stronger. The balance of the speech appeared more a political stump speech, and one by a candidate on the defensive. The speech itself was well crafted for its intended purpose, to stump for reelection. It was designed to hit all the hot topic buttons in the minds of his political base like religious discrimination by the government and centrist American voter’s issues like national defense, jobs, and medical costs.
More than half the speech from the beginning was focused on Iraq, terrorists, and homeland defense. In much the same manner that he associated Saddam Hussein with the 9/11 terrorists, tonight he defended previous claims of WMD in Iraq in by asserting "already the Kay Report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations." WMD-related program activities? What does that mean? It sounds like proof of WMD has been found. Then I looked at the text. This impression is completely false.
And what are these significant amounts of equipment concealed from the U.N.? Are we talking computer equipment, weather monitoring vans, or freezers? Again, the impression the statement makes to support his previous claims of WMD is cleverly written to conceal, not to reveal. Given the hits the President is still taking on the premises for invasion, this part of the speech was entirely defensive and cleverly so.
He quite correctly stated the world is better off without Saddam's regime, but carefully avoided any mention of what it has cost us. In stark contrast to the common knowledge that the huge share of the human and financial costs being expended in Iraq (almost 500 Americans dead and billions of dollars spent) belong to the Americans, he offered a list of countries participating in Iraq. In an attempt to create an image of an international effort which his opponents have called for through the U.N. he stated, "Some critics have said our duties in Iraq must be internationalized. This particular criticism is hard to explain to our partners in Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Italy, Spain, Poland, Denmark, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, the Netherlands, Norway, El Salvador, and the 17 other countries that have committed troops to Iraq."
Notably absent from the speech was any reference to 'right to life' or anti-abortion statements, found in previous speeches. This calculated oversight was certainly guided by the recognition that women's votes are important in November and reminding them of his position on that issue should be avoided.
Nor was there any address of the national debt surpassing 7 trillion dollars this year. He did mention the deficit stating, "This will require that Congress focus on priorities, cut wasteful spending, and be wise with the people's money. By doing so, we can cut the deficit in half over the next five years." Very clever, placing the responsibility for the deficits on the Congress while fostering one of the largest social benefit programs in decades, dispensing with competitive bidding for Iraq contracts which may have saved tax payers 10's of millions of dollars, pressing for colonies on the Moon and Mars, and cutting taxes so deeply for the wealthiest in the nation that the very best he can offer is continuing to deficit spending for at least the next 5 years. This was clearly a defensive maneuver against attacks coming from both the left and right regarding the potential damage our national debt poses as a legacy for the Republican Party.
The President is taking one huge gamble on the economy by professing its growth in his speech. Being a religious man, I would guess he will be praying for the economic fabric to hold together at least until the day after November's elections. This was the only bold part of the speech in my opinion. Bold, because while statistics overall reveal a recovering economy, the sentiment among CEO's and Wall Street, workers and the unemployed is that the economy is not responding fast enough to permit any of these folks to relax.
The text of the speech can be found at Whitehouse.Gov
Posted by David R. Remer at January 21, 2004 01:04 AMI liked the way Ashcroft was smiling so devilishly when Bush said “You need to renew the Patriot Act”. Aside from that, I was too drunk to worry about the bullshit anymore, I decided to partake in the SOU drinking game this year.
Posted by: Stephen VanDyke at January 21, 2004 06:21 AMI need TiVo. I work graveyard shift and slept right through the state of the union. It’s all for the best. I would have just wound up shouting at the TV and annoying my neighbors.
What is the SOU drinking game?
Posted by: Vague at January 21, 2004 10:58 AMYou can view the transcript and video online here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/2004/index.html
Boy oh boy .. where to begin. I’d taken several notes during the speech last night, but they’re not in any particular order, so bear with the format here. Firstly, I downloaded Tom Paine’s scorecard the night before in anticipation of any easy up-or-down scoring process, but I found many other areas of the speech quite .. interesting.
Alright, as David clearly pointed out earlier, a pivitol section of the President’s SOTU address, jobs and the economy, was cleverly molded into a movie set, a stage, a prop. A lie, nonetheless. It’s one thing to only be capable of seeing one side of the truth, but quite another to boldly declare that “jobs are on the rise”, while any reliable statistical information points toward the EXACT OPPOSITE. I’ve been looking for a job for the past year, and I’m definately not the only one. I’ve also given up for the time, and this industrial joblessness has been going on long enough for peoples’ employment funds to run out, thus the pundant’s assertion that jobs must be on the rise. Quite the contrary - there is a spreading sense of hopelessness sinking into the unemployed, and they are temporarily giving up, one by one. Those of us on the outside of the system’s acclimation of “facts” differ strongly from the claims of CEO’s, wall street, and the big businesses - we are on the final lap in the race to the bottom.
That being said, and given the obvious fact that this speech is meant to be the President’s green light on his reelection campaign, the first question that came to me was “Is this the state of the Union address, or the state of the Planet address?”. The situations in Iraq and Afghanistan are starting to look appealing to me; not the fact that our troops are over there fighting and dying in the cause of terror erradication, but the idea that these countries have been liberated from oppression. At least in these countries, there is hope for sincere FREEDOM, unlike what we live through in our rotting and corrupt oligarchy. But the burden of our intent still weighs heavily on our future generations: Where is Osama bin Laden and where are the chemical weapons that we gave to Saddam Hussein?? Why aren’t our troops getting Combat Pay?? Where is the accountability for the intelligence fiasco, and why is that not a priority?? Where is the accountability, period?!
This President clearly lacks the capacity to admit fault. I’m thouroughly convinced that Mr. Bush simply cannot say whether or not he’s lied, or even made a mistake. As Comedy Central pointed out in a video clip of the President “Me Fool”, the saying goes “Fool me once, shame on me .. fool me twice, shame on you”, but Dubya came to a screeching halt on the first line - he said “Fool me once, shame on … (alarming pause) … you. Fool me twice … (perplexity and disbelief) … Ya fool me once ya can’t get fooled again!” Oh the shame indeed, Mr. President.
So, he defies skeptics and critics, and proceeds to “stretch the truth” about WMD’s in Iraq … again? This time, he asserts that he will be asking for tax dollars from Congress to fund a media propaganda campaign in the middle east to spread his theory of what is right, and what is right is us. I envision stealth bombers dropping hoards of television sets in third world territories.
Speaking of tax dollars, Dubya has once again asked for a blank check (or blank checkS). Correct me if I’m wrong, but here’s the tally:
20 million for anti-drug propaganda to be “used” in our schools against our children, which focuses on school sports and extracurricular activities.
300 millon to be “used” to promote faith-based rehabilitation for out-going prisoners.
“Billions” (no more numbers) for guiding the federal hand into the states’ religious affairs. The ten commandments monument in the Alabama courthouse, as an example. This goes for schools, libraries, colleges, parks, and all other public domains as well.
Untold millions (or even billions) to be used in the middle east propaganda crusade, as mentioned earlier.
Now, unless I missed a large portion of the speech, which I don’t believe I did, he made no mention of his contraversial proposal for his adventures into outer space. Experts claim that this would cost us upwards of 100 billion. He wisely chose to drop this silliness from our national agenda in lieu of his other bids for tax money. Still, I saw no indication of his intent to curb his administrations reckless financial vision. Instead, he tossed that responsibility firmly onto the lap of congress, while in the same breath, demanding bi-partisan cooperation for his cabinet’s expensive bid for an infeasible Bush Planet.
Environment? “What environment? Oh, you must mean the War on Drugs”. Yes, Dubya mentions that we must free ourselves from our dependancy on foreign fossil fuels, but does he mean that we should be looking towards the advent of cleaner running automobiles? No! What he meant to say was “I went to Iraq to make sure these middle-easterners would harness the power of thier massive oil supply, so that we could grease our American wallets and not have to worry about putting pressure on car manufacturers and interior oil companies, but I got myself into a big ol’ foreign policy mess! HELP!” It almost wets thee eye.
Before I get ahead of myself, let’s talk about the President’s assessment of the War on Drugs. It’s so hurtfully obvious that it’s frightening, that Dubya stands 80 years in the past by lumping marijuana into the same catagory as herion and crystal meth, titled “illegal drugs”. Thankfully, Harry J. Anslinger is dead, and we should have the mobility to leave this embarrassing era behind us in our pursuit of truth. But Bush, by saying “don’t do illegal drugs, m’kay?”, reaffirms this ignorant plague of misinformation about drugs, and it’s penetration into our psyche as the result of decades of deceitful government control. This statement also flies in the face of the words “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”. This war has been the most expensive, damaging, and misguided in all of the worlds’ history, and it’s time to admit defeat.
— By the way, David, I’ve been meaning to respond to your comments on my statements about the war on drugs in which you agreed with my concept, but had differing ideas as to a solution. While I’m glad to hear a sound endorsement of common sense, I am disappointed in your measures of trading civil responsibility for government controlled pharmacuetical resolve. However, that assessment of the right direction is still honorable, as dismantling the structure of the war will be a complicated process, and any step in the right direction is a step in the right direction regardless of how small.—
Okay, what else - by all means, while we’re on the subject of civil liberties, the President brings up the Patriot Act. The merits of this act can be debated at length, but one thing we should keep in mind is Bush’s concept of the future of the Patriot Act - he said, much to my horror, that the Patriot act has proven to be a useful tool in tracking terrorist activities, *But also in the tracking of CRIMINALS*. “What?” Did anyone honestly expect that Big Brother wouldn’t be using it’s power to track the activities of it’s citizens? You may think “I’m no criminal, and I’m no terrorist, therefore I have nothing to hide.” To this I respond with one word: SUSPICION. With any amount of suspicion that the authorities deem credible, and by that I really mean ANY amount, any and all in the U.S. are suspect, alleged perpetrators, and guilty until proven innocent in a court of Executive Authority. This is a police state by definition, and a proven reality.
Education; our seed, our garden of hope, our vision of utopia, is used many more polititions than the likes of Dubya as a provisional topic of campaign, a deep-felt idea in the guise of promises made in the quest for electability. When will we actually standardize education? The “no child left behind” act is such a case, where a politician says one thing, and does another. This bill is missing 7 billion dollars in promised funding. The President made no mention of this fact, repeating my concerns, and proving them in full. Of course, that’s not the only thing Dubya said (and didn’t mean) to get elected. For instance, he said he wouldn’t go around the world telling other countries how to do things - “I don’t think we ought to use our troops for what’s called Nation Building.” It’s despicable. Lets educate our children about the importance of telling the truth from here on out.
I’ve heard that one thing to watch during the state of the union speeches was the “side show” of which side of the room stands and claps, and which side sits and makes gramacing faces. I’ve concluded that the term “side show” is very appropriate. Compare our congressional meetings to the British House of Commons any day, and envy of thier rough-and-tumble democracy and accountability consumes me. I saw a president last night who made it clear that there will be no more mister nice guy, as he abandoned bi-partisan politics in a stern manner to all democrats, or anyone else, that oppose his agenda. This is not representation, it is political warfare, and a threat to our beloved democracy. If Bush happens to be reelected, we will suffer four more years of decay. Maybe this new breed of Republicans want America to mirror the empire of Rome in the year 410? It will, in a society of slaves and masters.
Moving on to less important factors of the speech, I come to my notes of Dubya wishing to protect his precious doctor campaign contributors as well as his corporation campaign contributors from “frivolous lawsuits”. Remember Mr. Bush, you serve in the Executive branch of government, not the Judicial branch. Judges should decide, with the help of lawyers’ discretion in taking claims, whether or not a lawsuit is a trivial matter. He doesn’t say whether or not these suits should make it to court, which is what he purports to be the problem slowing down the system, no, it’s about the money. Capping the allowable amounts of money awarded in court is the JUDGE’S job - the president ought to concern himself more with whether or not these judges do thier jobs in accordance with the statute, and take responsibility when they do not.
Finally, and I apologize for the long winded post, I make my out-going analysis on Bush’s out-going remarks. Bush said something to the effect of “God has been the guiding hand of his administration”. Throughout his speech, it became abundantly clear to me that we have actually elected God as President of the United States, not George Bush. He believes with all of his heart that christianity is the guiding light to a more perfect union. We should know better than that. Afterall, our ancestors did not brave six or more months on a boat trip to freedom, only to declare a new religious rule. Christianity has no more business in our governing policies than does Judaism, Catholicism, or Satanism. Freedom of religious oppression also means freedom FROM religious saturation. As an exapmle of the unseen damage, I can only consider myself a christian agnostic, and while this term is both mutually exclusive and an oxymoron, it describes a former christian who doesn’t believe in Santa Clause any more, but cannot shake the fear instilled by years of childhood christian idealogy being thrown at my developing brain.
This country means more to me than that though, so I only see a course of action in political activism, or, as entitled in our Constitution, revolution if necessary. This goes for the people calling themselves Democrats as well - The republicans and democrats serve only as the twin towers of power, and every four years we ask ourselves if our vote will make a difference this time, and whether or not we should go with the flow and cast it resentfully towards the “lesser of two evils”. The only chance left in our so called democracy of meaningful representation is for these twin towers to release thier stronghold on the election process, thereby relinquishing the course of the battle they seem addicted to fighting to the people they are supposed to SERVE.
Posted by: Will at January 21, 2004 03:41 PMCaught about the first twenty minutes. Then I found myself staring mindlessly at the walls and remembering the night’s American Idol episode for entertainment. Then it dawned on me: the Patriot Act has not yet been renewed. I don’t have to watch this if I don’t want to. So I decided to live up the last precious few days of sweet freedom by partaking in the great American pastime, channel surfing.
Posted by: Lukin at January 21, 2004 03:53 PM>religious discrimination by the government
I wish he was against religious discrimination by the government. The gist of this faith-based initiative push is not to just give contracts to religious organizations (which is basically legal, as far as I know), but also exempt them from rules ordinary contractors have to follow. For example, Bush wants to let religious contractors choose employees on the basis of their religion. So he is really saying black is white: paying for religious discrimination = ending religious discrimination.
Posted by: Woody Mena at January 21, 2004 06:13 PMWoody, you raise what appears to me to be a very important point. If valid, I expect a challenge to the US Supreme Court of such policy based on fair and equal application of the law. Even conservative judges, I should think, would be inclined to uphold such a challenge on the basis of fair and equal application.
Posted by: David R. Remer at January 26, 2004 05:05 AM
