State of the Union - 2007
Image from the ClayBennett.com website
I was watching.
I was underwhelmed.
I did applaud loudly for Nancy Pelosi. I saw her speak at one of the graduations for my law school. ;-) I think she's doing a great job, and I'm glad she's the House speaker!
I do agree we need to work on healthcare, but after six years he's going to start that NOW? Well, as an insulin dependent diabetic, I'll say it's better than never dealing with it.
I do agree that the US has some amazing immigrants and that there are amazing Americans doing some great things worldwide - um, yeah, that's why so many people risk life and limb to get to the US.
He forgot however to mention New Orleans. There were good things like energy, healthcare, education, and global warming. It just seems that it's six damn years too late. Let's hope that in the last two something CAN be done.
It just seemed to be the same ol' couched in "let's work together" rhetoric because that's the only choice he has now. It would have been much nicer to see that tone two or even six years ago.
I'll let Andrew Sullivan speak for me on the details because, at least, he's getting paid to blog about it.
Sullivan's live blog during this 2007 State of the Union (SOTU) address:
Live-Blogging the SOTUSullivan's take on 2007 SOTU Democratic response:
23 Jan 2007 09:22 pm
10.02 pm. Brave but not so humble. The subway dude is spreading the love. I'm letting go and giving in. America! Yay!
10.01 pm. Baby Frigging Einstein?
10 pm. The NBA dude is next to the Asian heroine or whoever. There's around six feet between his head and hers. Best shot of the night.
9.58 pm. I'm looking at the script. The hero section is looming. Oy.
9.55 pm. He wants more recruits for the armed forces. Six years late, he endorses Al Gore's position in the 2000 election. Still: it's a good move. Maybe next time, we will go to war with sufficient strength and intelligence to win.
9.52 pm. "Whatever you voted for, you didn't vote for failure." Damn right. But this president gave us failure. He failed in his task of basic competence and decency in the war. That is why the situation in the "here and now" is so grave. Because of his delinquency and arrogance. The American people are not stupid. And their approval rating simply reflects the reality they see.
9.50 pm. "Chaos is their greatest ally in this struggle." The president is speaking of Islamists, Sunni and Shia. I agree. So why did the U.S. sit back and let chaos spread across Iraq for three years? Why did this president refuse for three years to send sufficent forces to succeed?
9.45 pm. The president forces the Democrats to stay sitting when he urges "victory" in Iraq.
9.40 pm. "The Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat." Is this the formulation by which the president tries to frame a Muslim civil war as a single war against the West? Rather than attempting to exploit the differences among Islamist terrorists, the president seems eager to unite them. I can't say it makes any coherent sense to me.
9.34 pm. "The challenge of global climate change." Could he be any vaguer?
9.32 pm. I like the energy stuff. I have no idea if it's serious, but I like it - and the connection the president made to national security.
9.29 pm. "Without animosity and without amnesty." Nice one, Matthew.
9.28 pm. Deathly silence greets the words "temporary worker program."
9.20 pm. It takes a Democratic Congress to put fiscal conservatism at the front of this president's priorities.
9.13 pm. He can't help himself. He begins with a graceful nod to the first female Speaker; then he wrecks it by talking of the "Democrat Congress". The transcript says "Democratic Congress." No biggie - but it does rub the other side the wrong way.
WebbEnough said. I'm going back to my computer game.
23 Jan 2007 10:26 pm
It was, I think, the most effective Democratic response in the Bush years. He managed to bridge economic populism with military service and pride: a very potent combination. He did so with a sense of responsibility. The message, in short: "Lead us toward responsible redeployment in Iraq - or get out of the way." And he said it with testosterone and authority - more authority than this president now has.
More links:
The Official Whitehouse news release - State of the Union Address 2007
WashingtonPost.com - Instant Analysis: State of the Union address
New York Times - Bush Insists U.S. Must Not Fail in Iraq
Humor:
The State of the Union Address Drinking Game
Cox & Forkum: SOTU Sphere: Related Content
Exactly.
ReplyDeleteIt was a big deal with the Clintons too. At least, with them it was an attack on the complexity of the plan that got it killed. I still give them credit for trying at the START of his first term as president.
I didn't hear much with Bush, but, to be completely fair I didn't read the policy initiative page: http://www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/2007/initiatives/index.html
However, I didn't because I don't have much hope that what's in it is worth reading.
Thanks again for reading and commenting!