Burnt Orange Report

More of the same crap...this year is not going be any different than anything before.

Can I just call him a butthead?

Tons of new spending without any way to pay for it. Tax cuts just died, as did any hope of him driving SS reform. The wiretapping explanation was heavy handed and people will see through it (it IS a good thing the President is not required to be under oath before delivering this address).

Alternative energy is so heavily Democratic that he may as well have started campaigning for D congress candidates.

He's taking a gamble with this speech that it'll pull his polls up and distract from his failures. It won't pay off but it's a ballsy move.

Wow. He actually admitted screwing up on his Social Security pipe dream. And, yeah whatever, we'll see just how quickly the health care system untangles, mr. boosh. Coming clean on being addicted to oil? Fodder. Mostly fodder. The American Competitive Initiative? These things might sound cool, but I don't know if you do all that AND extend the tax cuts AND cut the budget in half by '09 mr. booosh. Did just see him toast Roberts and Alito and then take a swig of gin? I'm fine with no cloning as long is it guarantees there can only be 1 mr. boosh. Oh, and drug use down? Whatever, I just smoked a j.

He dodged most of his mistakes. He recognized Katrina, but didn't really talk about any way to make the government's response better. He stuck to his guns on social security reform -- fine, whatever. His section about the wire-tapping completely missed the point (everyone is fine when you use the courts and adher to the Foreign Intelligence Security Act -- it's when you randomly start doing domestic taps that we get upset).

I don't know -- the foreign policy section was more of the same. Interesting to see him call for Hamas to recognize Israel and disarm. But I got lost through most of it -- freedom and liberty are good, and that's about it.

It seemed much emptier than his previous addresses. I actually thought he did well in some previous years. This time, I don't know -- it seemed like he just wanted to get out of there.

I noticed Ralph Hall was right at the door of the house in a brown suit when Bush came through the doors. Don't know if he was part of the official 'escort' party or what, but it was interesting.

How does TWO more Bush appointees to the Supremes sound? Sounds great to me and we could have our country back for 50 more years. Janice Rogers Brown and Michael Luttig would be SUPER picks.
I've got a gut feeling that Bush is not done fixing the Supreme Court. Ain't it grand? A Supreme Court nomination is just like a political race now. The Repubs learned that lesson when they got Borked and I don't think they will ever get ambushed like that again.
It is good to see the naked politics of it on the table now. I don't think you will ever see Repubs vote for someone like Ginsberg or Breyer again after all this desperate partisan behavior by the Demos. All most folks now is that the Dems made Mrs. Alito cry.

I can't wait for the user ratings...

The most striking fact to me was the excess of "finger waving" toward those who would oppose him. I can't really remember much substance, as the speech consisted mostly of this and lasted only 51 minutes. Can't wait until Bush puts out a humorous lame duck video of his own (in case you'd forgotten, Clinton did so in 2000 http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/multimedia/clinton-final-days.mov)

I think Tim Kaine did a fabulous rebuttal!

Phillip, you would so get a 5 for that. ;)

I think my favorite part was Clinton shaking her head and the Democrats standing up in applause afer Bush said Congress failed to pass his Social Security Reform.

Also worth noting -- he asked for the power to line-item veto the budget, something Republicans took away from President Clinton.

Anyways, the general opinion among my group of friends was one of sad-head nods for foreign policy, and doubt for domestic policy. I don't know -- last year, when I heard President Bush talk about social security reform, I was actually impressed. He sounded like he really wanted to do it, and given his latest victory, I thought he would. Tonight, I just didn't believe any of his domestic policy initiatives -- which is a large part why, I think, he went back to the "defending American freedom" by the end of the speech.

As Rove said to the RNC a week or so ago -- so long as national security remains the issue, the Republicans will remain strong. President Bush seemed to embrace that, but was left wagging his finger at empty rhetoric for the rest of the night.

Tim Kaine did do a good job. It was interesting hearing him -- as most of his address was saying the same things Democrats had been saying, but in a different way. In the way that won him the gubernatorial election (according to my smarter friends). Hopefully, he can continue -- and others will join him -- to set a tone for a more thoughtful Democratic rhetoric (as opposed to that famous protester that was arrested earlier in the day).

And before everyone jumps all over me -- having a thoughtful, calmer rhetoric doesn't mean you've abandoned Democratic principles. It just means you've learned that you can talk to people without yelling at them.

The headline on the local rag story says it all
"Bush Skips Complex Realities in Address"
Statesman article

Bush pretty much has skipped all the complex realities in his black and white, good and evil, world view from the very beginning. "We're meeting our responsibility" he says. Now doesn't that sound like a good master? Thank you bush, may we have another, war please.

What are the 16 little words this year? Most of the lies were the Orwellian kind, that they repeat often enough people just start to believe them.
War is peace
Freedom is salvery
Ignorance is strength

Sonia

Come on guys, the SOTU has just become a prop for the continuous campaign - nada mas. The platitudes were predicatble standard speechwriter fare, but those devilsh details just didn't add up.

Phil's last point is the real deal. Rove told the RNC, here in Austin in January of 2002, that they would use the "war on terror" to win. Almost four years later, to the day, he told the RNC the same thing last month. Call it Rove's "Keep Fear Alive" campaign.

In his own way, Kaine countered that well by speeaking to basic values and the belief that a democratic government has a role to play in making our lives better. In contrast to the politics of fear, he outlined a message that is neither liberal nor conservative, just a hopeful request that Democrats be given a chance to earn the voters' trust.

Let's face it, we all learn to be skeptical, but cynicism and fear are the most dangerous enemies of a party that would put people first.

And Vince, Henry Cuellar was there at the door, too, waiting to shake the hand of the President he endorsed in 2000 and campaigned for across the nation in Hispanic communities.

"Thoughts, opinions and ideas with historical perspective are a plus."

Lots of thoughts, lots of opinions, most of which will be on the major newspaper web sites by midnight although some are already there.

Historical perspective? How can you give historical perspective to a speech by a man who has taken us where no other president ever has and where hopefully no other president ever will again.

"America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world."

Unstable because of the policies of his father while he was CIA director and then vice-president and president. Policies which in the end will leave us at the mercies of fundamentalist Islamic governments which strangely enough are now being elected in the very "democracies" he claims to have brought to the Mideast.

History will not be kind to him. But then history really has not been kind to any of the Bushes beginning with Samuel Bush. They just have a way of having people overlook it all. They are, after all, a great American family with great American family values. Particularly the ideal of fascism as embraced by Samuel Bush. And obviously embraced by his great-grandson George W Bush in the form of oligarchy.

A moving speech. Personally I plan to put in a bomb shelter.