The SOTU

[Darryl G. Thomas]

A maniacal Bush hater (in otherwords a close personal friend of mine) emailed this to me:

So you've decided to watch the State of the Union . . .

A viewer's guide and translation key



Good for you. It's every citizen's duty to keep an eye on his or her
elected officials, so we commend you for taking the time out from your
busy schedule to watch the address.

The State of the Union (SOTU to its friends) is a proud and important
tradition whose origins can be traced back to the Constitution, Article
II, Section 3, which says that the President "shall from time to time
give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and
recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge
necessary and expedient." At least it's good to know there's one part
of the Constitution President Bush takes seriously, isn't it?



If you've watched President Bush's past speeches, you may have noticed
that the President's language is often at odds with the news media, your
own perceptions of the country, and reality in general. You're not
alone. Luckily, we've assembled this handy guide to help you translate
from "Bushspeak" you may hear tonight.



"The State of our Union is strong" = "I hope you haven't been watching
the news"

Over the past year, President Bush has divided the nation with his
destructive policies and controversial Supreme Court nominations. One of
America's great cities suffered a catastrophic disaster while Bush and
his FEMA fiddled. The deficit is out of control and getting worse
thanks to the Bush tax cuts for the rich. Poverty is on the rise. Most
Americans think the war in Iraq was a mistake. The Medicare
prescription drug plan has done nothing but confuse seniors and line the
pockets of insurance companies. Has America been more divided at any
time since the Civil War?



"Terrorist surveillance" = "illegal wiretapping"

You can't dress it up. President Bush's wiretapping is in direct
conflict with federal law and the United States Constitution. While
everyone agrees that the President should use every legal tool at his
disposal to prevent another terrorist attack, and a special court
already exists to give the President the power he needs, he chose to
sidestep even that basic oversight. If President Bush thought that the
law prevented him from keeping Americans safe, he could have asked
Congress to change the law. Instead he broke it. But that's not so
surprising given that under President Bush's unique view of the
Constitution, he can sign a law (like the ban on torture) while
declaring that he intends to ignore key parts of it and any court that
tries to enforce it. Time to dust off the Declaration of Independence.



"Justice Alito" = "Right for the Far Right"

Remember Harriet Miers? The Radical Right certainly does. Far-right
leaders weren't sure that she would rule with them 100% of the time, so
they demanded that Bush withdraw her nomination and appoint someone they
could count on. In a matter of days, Samuel Alito, Robert Bork's heir
apparent, was on his way to the Supreme Court. Bush will especially
appreciate Alito's passion for the "unitary executive" and his penchant
for restricting the authority of Congress while giving the president and
executive branch free rein.



"Activist Judges" = "Judges who don't rule exactly how I want them to"

President Bush believes that j udges should be bound by a strict
reading of the Constitution. Except for the 1st Amendment, the 4th
Amendment, the 14th Amendment, the Commerce Clause, the equal protection
clause, the birthright citizen clause, Article 1 Section 1, Article 1
Section 5, or Article 2 Section 4. Other than that, his judges should
follow the Constitution to the letter.



"Health care reform" = "Big cash for health companies and big costs for
Americans"

Currently, more than 45 million Americans are uninsured. Apparently, the
President plans to "fix" this by introducing a program that will allow
high-income Americans to benefit from tax free accounts while
encouraging the cutback of employer provided health care for everyone
else. Of course, the Bush Administration's record of favoring the
interests of giant corporations over the interests of ordinary Americans
has never caused anyone at the White House any concern before.



"Reducing the deficit" = "Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics"

President Bush's policies will reduce the deficit the same way breaking
your scale will help you lose weight. By simply not counting the
billions of dollars spent on the war in Iraq, it's easy to reduce the
deficit! Of course, he'll also pay for more tax cuts for the wealthy by
cutting health care for low-income children, the elderly and people with
disabilities, as well as cutting student loans, child care, education,
and other services ordinary folks need. That's like losing weight by
cutting off a couple of limbs.



"Tax cuts are working" = "Tax cuts are working for me and my big
donors."

When President Bush points to his tax breaks as tools of success, he's
ignoring the fact that wealthy individuals and corporations have reaped
huge rewards while the average wages of ordinary Americans have remained
stagnant for a record four years in a row. Those payoffs to the rich
came straight from the federal treasury. President Bush thought tax
breaks for the wealthy were more important than quality schools, strong
New Orleans levies, body armor for American soldiers, cancer research,
college loans, drug treatment programs, safety inspectors for mines,
more police on the streets, increased early childhood education, small
business loans, or veteran's benefits. Maybe there's a reason for those
poll numbers, Mr. President.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Bush Echoes Presidents Past in Empty Talk of Economics

By Steven Pearlstein
Wednesday, February 1, 2006; D01

In his State of the Union speech last night, President Bush single-handedly revived the spirit of bipartisanship that has been so sorely lacking in Washington for the past decade, at least in terms of economic policy.

We've known for the past several years that the Democrats have nothing original, credible or even mildly intellectually intriguing to say about trade and immigration, the health care crisis, the energy crisis, the income inequality crisis, the education crisis, the global warming crisis, the looming entitlement crisis and the ballooning federal budget deficit.

But now it's official: the Republicans have nothing original, credible or even mildly intellectually intriguing to say about them, either.

It's unanimous.

Listening to the president's speech, in fact, was a bit like stepping into a time machine.

The we-can-meet-this-challenge rhetoric about energy independence, cars running on alternative energy and ending our addiction to Mideast Oil -- that could have come straight from the mouth of Jimmy Carter. The only thing missing was the sweater.

The bit about cutting the deficit in half while renewing individual tax cuts and the research-and-development tax credit -- that was pure Ronald Reagan. Ditto blaming malpractice suits for rising health care costs.

You have to go back only as far as Bill Clinton to find the last blue ribbon commission on entitlement reform.

And you know you're getting old when you can't even count the number of presidents and would-be presidents who have used that tired old line about how, "with open markets and a level playing field, no one can out-produce or out-compete the American worker." Wasn't that a Hubert Humphrey line?

We saw final confirmation of just how devoid the president was of fresh material when he trotted out the ol' line-item veto. Maybe now that he's packed the Supreme Court with a couple of government men, he thinks he can breathe constitutional life back into that dead policy horse.

But here's what I don't understand:

The American people are hungry -- desperately so -- for some straight talk from a political leader of either party about the economic challenges before them.

They don't expect politicians to have all the answers, and they certainly don't want 10-point programs. But they'd surely appreciate seeing some hint that their leaders had studied the problems thoroughly, weighed the competing interests and charted a course that was clearly independent of the special interests that have seized control of the political process. But in this State of the Union, all they got was easy platitudes and an assurance to every business and industry PAC that their money had been well spent.

In his repeated patriotic references to the sacrifices of America's fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush wasn't shy about tapping into the willingness of Americans to embrace shared sacrifice for a worthy common goal. But in the economic sphere, he continued to serve up the fiction of the free lunch.

And can anyone doubt that Americans would respond to a bit of conservative compassion for those who start out in life with two strikes against them, a frank assessment of the obvious trade-offs of free trade, or a shared sense of outrage at corporate executives who toss aside pension and health care benefits for tens of thousands of retirees and then load themselves up with $100 million golden parachutes? But there was none of that -- in the speech or in the economic and budget program that lies behind it.

I find it interesting that the president could take credit for saving $14 billion through the elimination of more than 140 non-security domestic programs without bothering to mention a dime he could save from the Department of Homeland Security or the Pentagon, which on his watch have become cesspools of waste, fraud and fiscal abuse.

And does anyone really believe that a president and vice president who became wealthy from their association with the oil and gas industry, who never failed to tout the industry line and who presided over the biggest transfer of wealth from consumers to industry in the history of mankind -- that these same leaders will move us beyond a "petroleum-based economy" to one based on "wood chips, stalks or switch grass"?

Earlier yesterday, I was anticipating the speech with Regina Herzlinger, a professor at the Harvard Business School who did some of the early work on consumer-driven health care, which is at the heart of the health care initiative the president barely mentioned last night. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone more market-oriented. Yet here she was complaining of how timid the Bush program was in the face of a health care crisis that leaves one quarter of working Americans without health coverage, that wastes hundreds of billions of dollars every year and threatens the competitiveness of U.S. companies in global markets.

"He's in his last term. He's got this great opportunity to do something bold about something that's really important," Herzlinger said. "And look what we get. . . . What the heck has he got to lose?"

Nothing, it would seem, except Republican control of Congress.

[rollhead]

Since I've been whipped and humbled for being an obnoxious troll, I need to find something positive to say at this juncture.

So .... ummmm....

I was pleased that he did say we need to find alternatives to oil.

I just hope he was speaking the truth.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by rollhead

Since I've been whipped and humbled for being an obnoxious troll, I need to find something positive to say at this juncture.

So .... ummmm....

I was pleased that he did say we need to find alternatives to oil.

I just hope he was speaking the truth.

Well, I'm sure we already have alternatives, but there's no way in hell the oil industry would ever let them see the light of day.

[Surfer]

Originally Posted by rollhead

I was pleased that he did say we need to find alternatives to oil.

It would be nice if he had actually proposed something.

It would be nice if Ford actually seemed interested in building a high mileage hybird car.

It would be nice if the energy lobbyists hadnt been given the pen with which to draft our Energy Policy.

It would be nice if Bush's "alternatives to oil" didnt invlove coal.



"Woudnt it be nice . . . . . . . . . . ." - Brian Wilson

[moneyp]

"Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious
abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or
implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and
buying, selling, or patenting human embryos."

Let's not be hasty on the human-animal hybrids.

[Scott Dolan]

There's actually video documentation of the experiments that lead to that sort of "hybrid" all over the web.

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

There's actually video documentation of the experiments that lead to that sort of "hybrid" all over the web.

But downloading it can get you in trouble with the DHS, the FBI, Rick Santorum, and your parish priest (well maybe not), among others.

[Dan G]

I made the mistake of watching this idiot last night. One comment that pissed me off was this:

"America rejects the false comfort of isolationism. We are the nation that saved liberty in Europe, and liberated death camps, and helped raise up democracies, and faced down an evil empire. Once again, we accept the call of history to deliver the oppressed, and move this world toward peace."

Sorry George, but the US wasn't the nation that saved liberty in Europe, but one of the nations. You can tell all the lies you want about how wonderful you are doing as a government right now, but don't revise history by failing to acknowledge that others were involved in WW2.

As a Canadian, statements like that really bother me because my father was wounded while fighting in Holland.

[Scott Dolan]

They show the U.S. SOTU in Canada?

That's kind of pathetic.

[Noj]

The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States of America
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington DC 20500


Dear Mr. President,

This March will mark the beginning of the 4th year of the war in Iraq. In contrast, U.S. involvement in WWI came to an end after 19 months. Victory in Europe was declared in WWII after 3 years 5 months. In the Korean War, a cease-fire was signed after 3 years and 1 month. But after more than three and a half years into the war in Iraq, your administration finally produced what is called a "Plan for Victory" in Iraq.

Iraq is not the center for the global war on terrorism. I believe Iraq has diverted our attention away from the fight against global terrorism and has depleted the required resources needed to wage an effective war. It is estimated that there are only about 750 to 1,000 al-Qaeda in Iraq. I believe the Iraqis will force them out or kill them after U.S. troops are gone. In fact, there is now evidence that Iraqi insurgent groups are increasingly turning against al-Qaeda and other foreign terrorists.

Our country needs a vigorous and comprehensive strategy for victory against global terrorism. The architect of 9/11 is still out there but now has an international microphone. We must get back to the real issue at hand - we have to root out and destroy al-Qaeda’s worldwide network.

There are 4 key elements that I recommend to reinvigorate our global anti-terrorism effort: Redeploy, Replace, Reallocate, and Reconstitute.


Redeploy

The war in Iraq is fueling terrorism, not eliminating it. Our continued military presence feeds the strong anti-foreigner fervor that has existed in this part of the world for centuries. A vast majority of the Iraqi people now view American troops as occupiers, not liberators. Over 80% of Iraqis want U.S. forces to leave Iraq and 47% think it is justified to attack Americans. 70% of Iraqis favor a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces, with half favoring a withdrawal in the next six months. In fact, 67% of Iraqis expect day-to-day security for Iraqi citizens will improve if U.S. forces withdraw in six months and over 60% believe violent attacks, including those that are ethnically motivated, will decrease. Our military presence is the single most important reason why the Iraqis have tolerated the foreign terrorists, who account for less than 7 percent of the insurgency. 93% of the insurgency is made up of Iraqis. Once our troops are re-deployed, the Iraqis will reject the terrorists and deny them a safe haven in Iraq. The Iraqis are against a foreign presence in Iraq of any kind.

The steadfast and valiant efforts of the United States military and coalition partners have provided the Iraqi people with the framework needed to self govern. The Iraqis held elections that have been touted as highly successful, based primarily on the accounts of Iraqis who went to the polls. But our continued military presence in Iraq, regardless of the motives behind it, is seen by Iraqis as interfering in Iraq’s democratic process and undercuts the chances for the newly elected government to be successful. Recently, Iraq’s National Security Adviser accused U.S. negotiators of going behind the back of the Iraqi government on talks with insurgents, saying the process could encourage more violence. He said, “Americans are making a huge and fatal mistake in their policy for appeasement and they should not do this. They should leave the Iraqi government to deal with it… The United States should allow the new Iraqi government to decide on how to quell the insurgency.”

In December 2005, an ABC News poll in Iraq produced some noteworthy results. 57% of Iraqis identified national security as the country’s top priority. When asked to rate the confidence in public institutions, they gave Iraqi police a 68% confidence level, the Iraqi army 67%, religious leaders 67%. But the U.S./U.K. forces scored the lowest, a mere 18%.

The longer our military stays in Iraq, the more unwelcome we will be. We will be increasingly entangled in an open-ended nation building mission, one that our military can not accomplish amidst a civil war. Our troops will continue to be the targets of Iraqis who see them as interfering occupiers.

Redeploying our forces from Iraq and stationing a mobile force outside of the country removes a major antagonizing factor. I believe we will see a swift demise of foreign terrorist groups in Iraq if we redeploy outside of the country. Further, our troops will no longer be the targets of bloody attacks.


Replace

The ever-changing justifications of the war in Iraq, combined with tragic missteps, have resulted in a worldwide collapse of support for U.S. policies in Iraq.

The credibility of the United States of America will not be restored if we continue down the path of saying one thing and doing another. We must not lower our standards and tactics to those of the terrorists. In order to keep our homeland secure, we must hold true to the values that molded our American democracy, even in the face of adversity. Former Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, said it best during a speech in March 2004 to the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies: “America knows we cannot seek a double standard. And, America knows we get what we give. And so we must and will always be careful to respect people's privacy, civil liberties and reputations. To suggest that there is a tradeoff between security and individual freedoms -- that we must discard one protection for the other -- is a false choice. You do not defend liberty to forsake it.”

Restoring the world’s confidence in America as a competent and morally superior world leader is essential to winning the war on global terrorism.

A recent pubic opinion poll, conducted jointly with Zogby International and taken in Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, found that 81% said the war in Iraq had brought less peace to the Middle East. A majority of the respondents said they view the United States as the biggest threat to their nations.

Mr. President, I believe in order to restore our credibility, you must hold accountable those responsible for so many missteps and install a fresh team that demonstrates true diplomatic skill, knowledge of cultural differences and a willingness to earnestly engage other leaders in a respectful and constructive way. This would do much to reinvigorate international participation in a truly effective war on global terrorism.

Reallocate

The Department of Defense has been allocated $238 billion for the war in Iraq, with average monthly costs growing significantly since the beginning of the war. In 2003 the average monthly war cost was $4.4 billion; by 2005 the average monthly cost had reached $6.1 billion.

Despite the urgent homeland security needs of our country, the bipartisan 9/11 Commission issued a dismal report card on the efforts to improve our counter-terrorist defenses. Even the most basic of recommendations, such as the coordination of fire and police communication lines, still have not been accomplished.

In the face of threats from international terrorists, we need to reallocate funds from the war in Iraq to protecting the United States against attack. A safe and swift redeployment from Iraq will allow us to do just that.


Reconstitute

The U.S. army is the smallest it's been since 1941. It is highly capable. But this drawn out conflict has put tremendous stress on our military, particularly on our Army and Marine Corps, whose operations tempo has increased substantially since 9/11.

The Government Accountability Office issued a report in November 2005 addressing the challenges of military personnel recruitment and retention and noted that the Department of Defense had been unable to fill over 112,000 positions in critical occupational specialties. This shortfall includes intelligence analysts, special forces, interpreters, and demolition experts-- those on whom we rely so heavily in today’s asymmetric battlefield.

Some of our troops have been deployed four times over the last three years. Enlistment for the regular forces as well as the guard and reserves are well below recruitment goals. In 2005, the Army missed its recruitment goal for the first time since 1999, even after offering enlistment bonuses and incentives, lowering its monthly goals, and lowering its recruitment standards. As Retired Army officer Andrew Krepinevich recently warned in a report to the Pentagon, the Army is "in a race against time" to adjust to the demands of war "or risk 'breaking' the force in the form of a catastrophic decline" in recruitment and re-enlistment.

The harsh environment in which we are operating our equipment in Iraq, combined with the equipment usage rate (ten times greater than peacetime levels) is taking a heavy toll on our ground equipment. It is currently estimated that $50 billion will be required to refurbish this equipment.

Further, in its response to Hurricane Katrina, the National Guard realized that it had over $1.3 billion in equipment shortfalls. This has created a tremendous burden on non-deployed guard units, on whom this country depends so heavily to respond to domestic disasters and possible terrorist attacks. Without relief, Army Guard units will face growing equipment shortages and challenges in regaining operational readiness for future missions at home and overseas.

Since 9/11, Congress has appropriated about $334 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, while the insurgents have spent hundreds of thousands. We have seen reports estimating that the total cost of the wars may reach as high as $1 trillion. These estimates are said to include such costs as providing long-term disability benefits and care for injured service members. It is estimated today that over 16,000 U.S. troops have been wounded in Iraq, 10,481 of whom have been wounded by "weaponry explosive devices."

But while war costs continue to climb, cuts are being made to the defense budget. As soon as the war is over there will be pressure to cut even more. This year, even while we are at war, 8 billion dollars was cut from the base defense spending bill. You ordered another $32 billion in cuts to the defense budget over the next five years, with $11.6 billion coming from the Army. The Pentagon told Congress only last year that it needed 77 combat brigades to fulfill its missions, but now insists it only needs 70. In fact, 6 of the 7 combat brigades will be cut from the National Guard, reducing its combat units from 34 to 28. Even though all of the National Guard combat brigades have been deployed overseas since 9/11, your Administration has determined that, because of funding shortfalls, our combat ground forces can be reduced. Not only will these cuts diminish our combat power, but our ability to respond to natural disasters and terrorist threats to our homeland will be adversely affected. It is obvious that the cost of the war, in conjunction with the Army’s inability to meet recruitment goals, has impacted this estimate. My concern is that instead of our force structure being based on the future threat, it is now being based on the number of troops and level of funding available.

I am concerned that costly program cuts will lead to costly mistakes and we will be unable to sustain another deployment even if there is a real threat. The future of our military and the future of our country could very well be at stake. The high dollar forecasts of our future military weapons systems and military health care add pressure to cut costs on the backs of these programs. As our weapons systems age, the concern becomes even greater.

During a time of war, we are cutting our combat force, we have not mobilized industry, and have never fully mobilized our military. On our current path, I believe that we are not only in danger of breaking our military, but that we are increasing the chances of a major miscalculation by our future enemies, who may perceive us as vulnerable.


Sincerely,


JOHN P. MURTHA
Member of Congress

[claude]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

They show the U.S. SOTU in Canada?

That's kind of pathetic.

The cable companies pipe in US channels. Wasn't that just a part of the indocrination program??

[Rob C]

Why does the SOTU always have to be so long? Why can't the Prez just come out, look around and say, "The state of our union.... is strong."

Then, as the applause is cresting, he could just add, "Thanks, folks, I'll be here all term! Good night!" and jam right out of there.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

I felt sorry for the older members of the Republican Party. Those required standing ovations had to be tough on the knees.

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by Rob C

Why does the SOTU always have to be so long? Why can't the Prez just come out, look around and say, "The state of our union.... is strong."

Then, as the applause is cresting, he could just add, "Thanks, folks, I'll be here all term! Good night!" and jam right out of there.

Rob, you might like this piece that was in the New York Times yesterday. The author agrees with you.

January 31, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Song of Myself
By FRANCIS WILKINSON
Nyack, N.Y.

IF there is a bandwagon in the works to eliminate the president's State of the Union address, I'm jumping aboard. There has always been something uncomfortably imperious about the speech. Originally known as the Annual Message, it mimics the "speech from the throne" that opens Parliament. Thomas Jefferson abandoned the spectacle when he became president, preferring to send his constitutionally mandated message to Congress in writing. His republican example succeeded in killing the ritual for more than a hundred years.

It was Woodrow Wilson, Anglophile and world-class meddler, who revived the custom of delivering the address in person, prompting one senator to lament "this cheap and tawdry imitation of English royalty."

Cheap, tawdry and mediocre. As oratory, the speech's record speaks for itself. When presidents exhale the breath of history — "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," or, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" — they invariably do it someplace other than in the State of the Union. A rhetorical omnibus making all local stops, the speech conveys a year's worth of departmental hackwork. In "Lend Me Your Ears," William Safire's compilation of great speeches, not one State of the Union address makes the table of contents.

Lately, things have grown worse. President Bill Clinton's final State of the Union expired after 9,000 words and more kitchen sinks than you'll find at Home Depot. The Gettysburg Address, by comparison, was 266 words. It's perhaps not too early to predict which of the two speeches the world will little note nor long remember.

President Bush has been less fortunate. Not one but two of his addresses have produced entries for the books. The first was the over-greased "axis of evil" in 2002 — alluring alliteration made memorable by inadvertent inanity. The second, in 2003, consisted of those 16 words about Saddam Hussein's uranium safari — and yes, even the "has" and "of" turned out to be false.

The speech's cheap theatricality is finally beginning to grate, with some people calling it meaningless and ready for extinction. But the real problem with the State of the Union is not vapidity. The problem is fraud. Because the address has increasingly little to do with the union — that is, the 300 million of us who represent the temporal sum of these United States. The speech instead has to do with the state of just one of us.

The State of the Union is all about His Majesty, the president. Is he master of Congress or supplicant? How far will his poll numbers rise? How did he perform? Mr. Bush may not like French, but the address is the embodiment of "L'état, c'est moi," transforming citizens into subjects, much as Jefferson feared. To hammer this point home, each year the White House peppers the gallery with "Lenny Skutniks," the trade name for the human props deployed to underscore the president's applause lines. The real Lenny Skutnik rescued passengers from an airline crash before serving as a visual aid to President Ronald Reagan's 1982 State of the Union. Skutniks have orbited the Capitol dome ever since.

Those of us watching at home also have a role. First, we're meant to respond to the president's new proposals as enthusiastically as a representative sample of us did when the ideas were poll-tested weeks before. Second, we must keep in mind that the address works best if we conclude, after hearing the full inventory of marvels the president has done, is doing and will do, that we like him more than we thought we did last week. Hang onto those good vibrations when the phone rings. It could be a pollster!

Manipulation is the essence of the game, after all, and because no one ever stops playing it, the president is expected to exploit his free shot at the goal for all it's worth. The speech's solipsism is even endorsed by the innovation of an opposition response, institutionalizing the old Broadway joke: "Enough about me, what did you think of my performance?" Only in Washington, the irony is always lost.

Jimmy Carter, wearing his cardigan on his sleeve, dispensed with the royal treatment for his last annual message, in 1981, sending Congress a report in writing instead. In this, President Bush would do well to emulate the least emulated of our recent executives. As the presidency grows more imperial by the hour, the State of the Union address is an hour more than we the people can bear.

Francis Wilkinson is a communications consultant and speechwriter.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Rob C

Why does the SOTU always have to be so long? Why can't the Prez just come out, look around and say, "The state of our union.... is strong."

Then, as the applause is cresting, he could just add, "Thanks, folks, I'll be here all term! Good night!" and jam right out of there.

Yeah, really.

You almost hope he comes out and says "goddamn I've got this totally ass stomping headache, so I'll be brief"..............

[Scott Dolan]

BTW, is it true the the dems stood and cheered last night when he anounced his failure to reform Social Security? I heard that on my motorcycle BBS.

[Dan G]

Scott - this is from the transcript:

"This year, the first of about 78 million baby boomers turn 60, including two of my dad's favorite people -- me and President Bill Clinton. This milestone is more than a personal crisis -- it is a national challenge.

The retirement of the baby-boom generation will put unprecedented strains on the federal government. By 2030, spending for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid alone will be almost 60 percent of the entire federal budget. And that will present future Congresses with impossible choices -- staggering tax increases, immense deficits, or deep cuts in every category of spending.

Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security, yet the rising cost of entitlements is a problem that is not going away -- and with every year we fail to act, the situation gets worse. "

At the comment about Clinton, they cut to a shot of Hillary wincing. Then, when he said that Congress didn't save Social Security, the Democrats - led by Hillary, jumped up and applauded (why didn't the speech police evict them?). The Republicans booed them.

[Scott Dolan]

Hahahaha........

Dammitt!! I hate when I miss something good like that.

[kedoane]

So I'm one of those blissfully unaware folks, since I didn't watch the SOTU speech last night. I had the perfect excuse: it was the first KSJS meeting of the spring semester and I wanted to welcome the new folks to the world of radio!

[rollhead]

Here is the whitehouse.org's take on the SOTU speech.

http://www.whitehouse.org/news/2006/013106.asp

*warning this is NOT, NOT politically correct, so those who are easily offended should not view it.

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

BTW, is it true the the dems stood and cheered last night when he anounced his failure to reform Social Security? I heard that on my motorcycle BBS.

I don't know why the f___ you haven't started a motorcycle thread, you j---.

You are holding out on us.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by rollhead

I don't know why the f___ you haven't started a motorcycle thread, you j---.

You are holding out on us.

I have made a few over the years.

[Brian Olewnick]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

I have made a few over the years.

Too many.

[claude]

Originally Posted by Brian Olewnick

Too many.

There are never too many bike threads!

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by B.O.

Too many.

Well then, maybe I'll start another!!!

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by claude

There are never too many bike threads!

I'm with you, Claude, baby.

[Scott Dolan]

[claude]

Love those Italian bikes!!

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by claude

Love those Italian bikes!!

Me too! Still wish I had $50k to throw down on this beast: