Review - State of the Union

[marbles]

Part-by-part:

1. Summary of his tax plan: Well worded, but not conveyed with much of a sense of urgency. Spent a good amount of air time on it, but showed little to no passion for an issue that may shape his presidency. Grade: D+

2. New proposals: I have trouble grading this part of the speech, since the material is so nonsensical for him. He spends 10 minutes talking about tax cuts, then immediately proposes billions of dollars in new spending on the hydrogen car, curing AIDS in Africa, and curing drug addiction. The whole section reeked of inconsistency with what has been a fiscally-conservative presidency to this point. I know he's supposed to be one of these compassionate conservatives, but puhleez... Grade: D-

3. Health care: The line about putting health care in the hands of doctors, nurses and patients was brilliantly done. Even some of the democrats jumped out of their seats... Musta made the "socialize medicine across the board" crowd sick to their stomachs, but screw 'em. Grade: B

4. Hooray for America: Okay, now W gets back to his bread and butter. He's done it better in the past, but even an off W is a good one for this bit. Not sure how many sound bytes made it into the international news media here, but no big thing. It's never bad to convince Joe Shmoe American that we're a benevolant big brother for the little guy. Grade: B-.

5. The case against Saddam: This is obviously the part of the speech he practiced in his pajamas Monday night. I have no numbers handy at the moment, but the man on the radio this morning said that support for the war had gone up slightly. I've already marked my calendar for Powell's follow-up on February 5th... Great teaser for the world to tune in. Grade: A-

Overall: The speech was an inconsistent yawner for the bulk of the time, but he closed strong, and hit the key points well. Overall, though, I expected better. Grade: C-

[Ray Zee]

i felt he sure got the people to think he is on the side of everyone. he seemd to try to appease all the factions. what he will really do is much less than he promised. as most of his promises are not part of any of his plans. i think his ratings will go up because of the speech and he will go back to his old tricks of only helping the big companies and the military.

[imported_Chuck Weinstock]

I saw this the other day on Turner Classic Movies and thought it was quite good. State of the Union is a Frank Capra movie about political corruption. Spencer Tracy plays a successful industrialist. Kathryn Hepburn is his estranged wife. Angela Lansbury (in her pre-Mrs. Fletcher era when she played marvelously evil women--see The Manchurian Candidate for another great example) plays the publisher of a chain of newspapers that schemes to make Tracy President. All this and a comedy too. Highly recommended.

Of course not quite as funny as the version I saw on television last night.

Chuck

[marbles]

"i felt he sure got the people to think he is on the side of everyone. he seemd to try to appease all the factions."
--True, true. Of course, any president will do this at the State of the Union, but he went further than usual.

"what he will really do is much less than he promised. as most of his promises are not part of any of his plans"
--Of course not. What amazes me, though, is that the average voter is oblivious to this obvious fact. Do they REALLY think our Republican prez is going to write a check for $10B to fight AIDS in AFRICA?

[patrick dicaprio]

two questions for those who oppose the war on iraq:

1. does anyone dispute the statements cited by bush on sarin gas, anthrax etc?

2. What happens if the pro war people are right and the anti war people are wrong about iraq and its use of weapons or providing them to others who would use them? on the other hand what is the cost if you are right and the pro war advocates are wrong?

Pat

[andyfox]

"what is the cost if you are right and the pro war advocates are wrong?"

Seems to me a preemptive war resulting in the deaths of thousands of Iraqi and American lives, and the possibility of the United States using tactical nuclear weapons in such a war, as is being considered by the administration, together with the possibility of a retalatory terrorist attack on the United States, as Saddam's son has threatened, would be a pretty big price to pay for being wrong.

[patrick dicaprio]

how is it "preemptive" when iraq has had a. 17 different UN resolutions, b. 12 years of permitting his violations c. a cease fire agreement and d. the only military action being the missile strike by clinton in 1999? what other actions should we allow him other than the 17 UN resolutions and inspections?

Pat

[andyfox]

A preemptive war is a war started by country A because it thinks country B would start the war is party A didn't act. I think this defines our proposed war with Iraq perfectly, whether one thinks it is justified or not.

[andyfox]

By the way, Israel, Morocco, Turkey have all violated more than 17 UN resolutions, but I don't see this being used as a reason for going to war with any of those countries. And Paskistan has a much greater WMD arsenal and capability than does Iraq, and has even threatend to use nukes on the 2nd most populous country in the world. I don't see this being used as a reason for going to war with Pakistan. North Korea has a much more advanced WMD program, has admitted to lying about it, and has said it would consider any economic sanctions by the U.S or the U.N. an act of war and would turn the United States into a "sea of fire" should we use economic sanctions. I don't see these things being used as a reason to go to war with North Korea.

[B-Man]

together with the possibility of a retalatory terrorist attack on the United States,

There have already been terrorist attacks on the U.S., more have been threatened, and more will come. These attacks will happen whether or not we attack Iraq. But if we do attack Iraq, and remove Saddam, that will decrease the ability of the terrorist groups to obtain weapons of mass destruction.