Thursday, February 02, 2006
Pittsburgh Post-GazettePresident Bush's State of the Union message Tuesday ran just under an hour, even with all the meaningless hoopla. Not because of the brevity, but with respect to America's serious problems, either he doesn't get it, or he gets it and isn't telling us.
The main emphasis of the speech was on foreign affairs and national security. According to Mr. Bush, we are winning the Iraq war. No one expected him to say that we are losing it, but with America's death toll now standing at more than 2,200 and the Iraqis apparently unable to arrive at agreement on a government in spite of the clean results of elections held six weeks ago, it is hard to see how the United States is winning the war.
With respect to his comments on what is clearly an energy crisis -- oil is hovering near $70 a barrel and gasoline prices are notoriously high; production is not going to increase although world demand, led by China and India, is; and his government's approach, starting with drilling in the Arctic, is laughable -- Mr. Bush's pledge to reduce American dependence on Middle East oil by 75 percent by 2025 is insulting. He will be out of office 16 years by then.
His promised approach to the looming financial problem of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security -- to name a bipartisan commission to study the problem -- is frivolous and empty. Everyone knows that to name a commission to study a problem is to doom it to a bloody, extended bureaucratic death, rather than to solve it.
The only positive aspect to his proposal is that the commission would be bipartisan. It goes alongside his promise to try to assure that political discourse in this country will become more civil, and that he will see to his side of the matter. If only he could assure us that Vice President Dick Cheney and political adviser Karl Rove would be part of the change.
Mr. Bush's foreign affairs hit list was interesting and predictable. He made a clear appeal over the heads of the leadership of Iran to that country's people, offering them good relations with America in the future. Other countries given unfavorable presidential mention included Syria, Burma, Zimbabwe and North Korea.
He used the word "freedom" many times and sought to justify his misuse of the National Security Agency's bugging capacity by citing the Constitution and "statutes." He said "appropriate" members of Congress had been informed of the eavesdropping, prompting the question of which of our representatives he considers inappropriate to be informed. He urged Congress to reauthorize the Patriot Act.
He argued that the U.S. economy is healthy, glossing over the recent depressing news about massive layoffs at General Motors and Ford, two historic bellwether U.S. firms, and a miserable 1.1 percent growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2005. He urged that his tax cuts, which largely favor the rich, be made permanent and he promised to cut the budget deficit in half by 2009, the year he leaves office.
He made a rather elliptical reference to the ethical standards of Washington, which was as close as he got to the scandals involving Jack Abramoff and other lobbyists, most of which swirl around Republican legislators and officials.
Mr. Bush, in this State of the Union message, seemed out of gas, out of money for new initiatives and out of political capital, with approval polls giving him about 40 percent. Unless he has answers and isn't proffering them, based on his Tuesday night report it doesn't appear that Americans can expect much from the Bush White House for the rest of his term. Maybe Groundhog Day today will offer us some sunshine that he didn't.
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