State Of The Union
Power Line noted "the Churchillian echo" of America's dedication to hunting terrorists and the "amazing record of progress" in Iraq, the thunderous applause from one side of the room, the silence from the other.
When President Bush, in last night's State of the Union address, said "hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy," Power Line's John Hinderaker observed:
Hard to argue with that. John Kerry isn't arguing, he is looking intently downward as though he's playing with a Game Boy.
Now from the other side of the aisle.
Corrente's Lambert, one of many Philadelphia progressives drinking liberally at Tangiers last night, detected some stage craft in the annual speech:
The camera does not lie; it helps, dealing with Bush, to mentally turn the sound down and just watch. What I'd like to see is a collage of headshot motion-captures from this speech: the caught-in-the-headlights fixity around the eyes, the overlarge and pointy ears, the licking of the dry lips, the Forward Lean of Sincerity, the half smirk of the traveling bible salesman who's lured the farmer's daughter up into the hayloft. Did I mention that He began the speech with a tribute to Coretta Scott King?
Over in the middle, Joe Gandelman at the Moderate Voice boiled the president's hour down to these three pitches:
* Stay the Course on tax cuts and Iraq.
* Change the Course of dependency on Middle East oil.
* Daring Dems to make him Change the Course on executive privilege and authority to wiretap citizens.
And me? I'm still scratching my head over that human-animal hybrid thing the President is worried about.
For an hour President Bush played to America last night - at least those who listened. The prime-time speech was carried on all networks and cable news. Text of the speech is here, if you want to get your news directly and avoid this cherry picking. Here are some key quotes and reactions. Here is a little multiple choice quiz (grades don't count.) "Peace Mom" Cindy Sheehan got herself arrested when she revealed her ant-war T-shirt in the House gallery. The family of another soldier killed in Iraq was honored with applause and appreciation for the son's duty.
I jotted down some broad themes and sharp lines, all quotes:
... retreat from our duties in the hope of an easier life... controlling our destiny ... September 11th ... democracies replace resentment with hope ... we love our freedom, and we will fight to keep it ... they would simply move the battlefield to our shores ... we will never surrender to evil ... America rejects the false comfort of isolationism ... if there are people in America talking to al Qaida, we want to know about it because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again. ...
The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum, who had live-blogged the speech, had this wrap:
The international part of the speech was mushier, more platitudinous than usual. In fact, what's interesting is that I think that entire section of the address could have been given by a President Kerry with no more than a few sentences changed.
The domestic stuff was just a laundry list. And what happened to health care? That was supposed to be a big focus of the speech, but he barely mentioned it. Nothing about tax reform, either. If he's serious about the clean energy stuff and the basic physical research, that's good news, but I'll bet he isn't. I'll wait to see the actual numbers on all that stuff. And the plea from Karl Rove's boss for bipartisan comity was either laughable or revolting, depending on your temperament. But it might play well in Peoria.
Overall, it was an ode to the era of Clintonian "small bore" initiatives. I suppose that's for the best.
i was wrong and fixed it. she was wearing the shirt, not reading it, by the way.
During the State of the Union address George Bush mentioned that he wanted to ban all forms of cloning to include human animal hybrids. Genetically altering DNA could allow for such a thing to happen.