You Were Better Off Going To Bed Early

This is crossposted from Left of Center, and it's about a day late. Sorry for that. But without further ado:

I've been struggling with writer's cramp all day. I blamed it on a lack of news, but that wasn't true. Than I blamed it on having too much work to do, but that really wasn't true. No, the reason why I haven't posted until just now is because I knew in my heart of hearts that I was going to have to write up a review of the State of the Union. That would mean I would have to read it.

Well, I've finally read it. It wasn't easy, and there were a few moments there that were touch and go, but in the end my dedication to you, dear readers, and the hope of finding something to rip El Presidente a new ass on kept me going. And, I might add with a hint of pride, I did it sober (not by choice, mind you, but they don't look too kindly on me knockin' a few back here at work).

So, my humble opinion.

Well, in general, as far as Bush speeches go, it wasn't the worst. He managed to conjugate most of his verbs properly, but that could have been just corrections made by the transcriber, but will give Georgie the benefit of the doubt. In all seriousness, it wasn't that spectacular, at least not in my mind. Any pundit that isn't a blatant liberal might tell you otherwise, and for them I have two questions. Did you sign the Armstrong contract? If not, then did you actually pay attention during the campaign at all?

A bulk of the State of the Union wasn't very interesting mainly because there wasn't anything new. Gays shouldn't marry each other, freedom is on the march, No Child Left Behind is actually a beneficial program, we're gonna be forcing freedom down your necks whether you like it or not but we aren't imposing our government on you. You know, the usual.

Someone, quick, tell Karl Rove his record is skipping.

And even the stuff that people were expecting to have new info on, namely SocSec, was still the stale old tired rhetoric that he's been using lately to try and convince people that he's not actually trying to rape the program. But more on that later because...

...I took notes.

After saying his howdies, Georgie raced through his economic accomplishments. I say raced because there really weren't that many, and the ones that he did have, were kind of dubious. Take, for instance, his creation of 2.3 million jobs. I'm not sure on that one, and if anyone corrects me on this, then I will cede the point, but last I checked, 2.3 million jobs still puts The Idiot King at a net of zero. Way to go. Or the home ownership thing. Home ownership has gone up under George. Neato, right? Well, my much more economically saavy wife once told me that home ownership going up can actually be a sign that the economy isn't doing so hot. I've sent off an e-mail to Fester to see if he can't clear that one up for me. Or I could just have my wife explain it, but who wants to talk to her (just kidding honey... I love you... really).

Or how about Shrub's "more competitve" American economy. Shamanic over at Simianbrain may disagree with that one.

I also like how Bush talks about going after the bad guys in business, but then starts talking about frivolous law suits, like asbestos claims. This is funny. No really, it is, so laugh. Forget you've heard of Harken or Spectrum 7. Is anyone catching a pattern here? If you step back, Bush wants people to stop suing people. Okay. He wants them to stop suing people because that makes things cost more. Okay. Well, here's the deal, the reason why people sue people is because someone screws up, and then doesn't fix it.

The asbestos comment really stood out for me because I've already read Ivin's book Bushwhacked, and therefore feel like I have a little insite into this one. In Molly's little expose, she describes a little story down on the Mississipi. I won't go into details, but basically it sums up to a bunch of execs refusing to accept ergonomics as a real science because that would mean they would have to spend money in order to prevent running their employees into the ground at a premature age. Damn junk sciences.

I guess to Bush, the studying of carcinogens and such is also a junk science.

And of course, what republican is able to have a speech without talking about taxes, and how evil they are. Yes, though our deficit and debt continue to grow, Bush talked again of making our tax cuts permanent, because, you know, yay debt, it's your birthday. Yeah, he talked about fiscal responsibility, right before he talked about dropping 150 government programs. So, there you go, "starving the beast," in action right before our eyes.

Than he dipped into Social Security. Early on was a great moment to employ the "Telemundo" strategy from my earlier posted tips on how to survive the State of the Union. Bush said, "Social Security was a great moral success of the 20th century, and we must honor it's great purposes in this new century."But, if you hit mute at the right moment, you can actually get more of what he really meant. Something like, "Social Security was a great moral success of the 20th century, and we must honor it's great purposes... by choking it to death."

Yet, there was some interesting things about this part of the speech. Not in the substance, come on. But more in the style. You may or may not have heard how rapidly the language regarding selling the execution of SocSec has been changing, but pay attention. Social Security was originally going to be "privatized," because it was in "crisis." Then it wasn't going to be privatized anymore, but instead would be augmented by "private accounts." But someone figured out that "private," and Social Security don't mix. They also realized that SocSec isn't really in crisis, and too many people understand that, so now Social Security will be augmented by "voluntary personal retirement accounts," because it is going "bankrupt."Aren't euphemisms cool?And then out of no where, just when we all thought he was going to give it up, there he goes again trying to save marriage.

Given Bush's track record on saving things, if I were drowning in the middle of the ocean (highly unlikely, I'm an excellent swimmer) and Bush were coming out to save me in a pair of red Baywatch trunks, I would punch him in the face.

So, right after he signaled that he was going to go back to pursecuting gays he went into his culture of life bit, which was really cool because we don't have to worry about any embryos getting heartlessly butchered in order to save lives or cure diseases. Phew, I was worried there for a second.

And, am I the only one that finds Bush's crusade to lead the culture of life a little ironic? Can I get an Iraq death toll anyone? Or how about the 152 people executed while he was the govenah of Texas? 152, did you know that's a record? Well, you gotta be good at something right?A

h, and finally we get to the War on Terror. You know, I just thought about this right now, when is Rumsfield going to schedule an attack on Freddy Kruger? Some people find him terrifying. Okay, that was bad.

Back on topic. Basically, after reading this part of the speech, I took one thing away. Iran, you're screwed.

Than there was Iraq. To be honest, this was when I stopped taking notes. There's a nice little bit where the wife of an Iraqi man who was executed a decade ago hugged the mother of a soldier that had recently died in Iraq. From the sounds of things, it upstaged Bush a little, and petty feelings aside, it seems to have been an all around nice moment.

But I'm not gonna critique Bush's Iraq spiel. Instead, I'm going to give you the low down, LofC style biiyatch!

First, the election was amazing. I'll give you some perspective courtesy of a professor of mine. 60% of the Iraqi people voted. In the last century of America, we have achieved that high of a relative voter turn out once, in 1960. Once. Their first time out, the Iraqi's matched our best effort. And we don't have to worry about getting shot at, or blowed up by a car bomb.

So, to the Iraqi people, my hat is really off to you. I admire your courage, and your self determination.

But, and this is where my contention with the right lies, this is not the end. Bush may have said once or twice that there is more work left to do, but the propaganda on the wall is trying to sell us that we've won.

Months ago, I got into an argument with a co-worker. I asked him what Bush's exit strategy in Iraq was. The only answer I got was, "free elections, democracy." Well, kids, that's not a strategy, that's a goal, and not even a final goal. This post is already rivaling a Sunday Edition in length so I'll shorten it, but here it is. Democracy is not a magic ward against terrorism.

It's going to take a lot of hard work (cringe). More people will die, and there is the possibility that enough people will be unhappy with the election that a civil war may still ensue. In short, it's too early to call the game. The fat lady ain't even started to warm up yet.

That's it for now. Remember, we're going to step back from politics a little this Sunday and look at the blogosphere, and we may have a new co-blogger joining us soon, still got some details to iron out. Until then, dear readers, stay tuned and keep on your toes.

Mr. M