State of the Union Speech

goofyfish

goofyfish

Analog By Birth, Digital By Design
Valued Senior Member
Well, I waited all day for someone else to do it, and I know this thread is going to up my blood pressure, but I gotta ask: President Bush has finished his first State of the Union Address. What is your gut reaction to it? No cites to back you up, no long prose here. Just your fresh, raw gut reaction to Bush's speech. You're welcome to offer an overall opinion of the speech or to zero in on a few points and expand on them.

The microphone has been thrust in your face. The camera is running. In 500 words or less, what is your gut reaction to President Bush's first State of the Union Address?

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(the fish kicks it off...)
If I heard correctly he picked a fight with four or five distinct countries (possibly over a dozen), WANTS to spend billions to put up a defense shield that has not been proven to work, HAS been spending 30 million dollars a day in our new military campaign, is planning on going up to Alaska to get some oil for some "jobs", plans to cut taxes again (do I get another 30 bills?), wants me to devote 2 years of my life to the "freedom core", wants kids in school earlier, wants to spend as much money as possible on weapons, and he finally wants to give money to "faith" organizations.

There should be a no-clapping-until-the-end rule. When the politicians started chanting "work! work! work!" I envisioned a little practice session earlier in the week. I knew that after he thanked his wife that we would, within seconds, get a shot of Hilary Clinton; I was not disappointed. It was as if the producers said "Let's see how a woman with a cheatin' bastard of a husband reacts when she sees people who are in love and are faithful to each other." Hilary's hair is horrible these days.

It seems like he said to Congress "I'm gonna spend ridiculous boatloads of cash, but YOU guys need to be fiscally responsible. Anyway I'm off. Got dinner with my Oil Industry and Weapons Contractor friends."

Then Gephart stood up and made it look like Bush gave a great speech. *whuf*

--- Edit: For those of you who watched Smallville instead, the text of the speech is here. ---


Peace
 
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He does look like he's picking a fight. Iran is an 'axis of evil'. Oh dear.

Bush:
Iran aggressively pursues these weapons [nuclear] and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom
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Well, Iran's regional rivals (namely Israel, Russia, Pakistan, India and China) all have nuclear weapons. Why didn't the US stop these countries? Why object so much to Iran? After all it was Pakistan's intelligence agency which propped up the Taliban. Okay, nuclear proliferation is a bad thing, don't get me wrong, but I can see why they'd pursue a nuclear programme (though of course they deny it). I wouldn't consider it irrational.

In the Iranian 2001 Presidential election Khatemi won a 77% share of the vote competing against 9 other candidates representing a wide-range of political opinion. Voter turnout was lower than in 1997, representing a degree of apathy as Khatemi didn't quite live up to his reformist promises, but was still well over 65%. Can Bush claim a similar democratic mandate?
 
Five days, one other opinion, and that from outside the country?? Did anyone else watch?

Peace.
 
Is it jus me or does the united states act like this is some card game and make/break the rules as they go??
we signed the treaty which currently forbids a missile defense system, yet bush says we should break it.. but god forbid some other country breaks a treaty ... there will be embargoes and massive bitching
When we break the rules, why should any other country, can we hold Iraq to any of the agreements it made after the gulf war?

by the way, lets not ignore the fact that the system does not work

any moral high ground 9-11 aforded us, is quickly eroding

will the numbers work out? tax cuts, more defense spending, more spending everywhere?
 
It's a good speech, with some good ideas, but I have a feeling that the things that I really want to see happen won't happen under Bush, and the things I really don't want to see happen probably will. I'm just basing this on his crappy track record so far, if you exclude 9-11 and the war. I have a feeling that we're more likely to see more defense spending and less likely to see stricter accounting standards. I have a feeling we'll see more drilling in national parks and less conservation. If Bush is so big into conservation, why did he get rid of a law that would've forced the car companies to come up with high mileage vehicles? Not only would that help conservation, it would create jobs for engineers and others to work on that. Sending each taxpayer $300-$600 is not going to help out, nor is giving a big tax break to the rich going to help out. We've seen before that "trickle-down" doesn't work! Grrrrrr. :mad:
 
I was visiting my brother and sister-in-law that evening (both Ultra-Republicans). We all had to sit and watch Bush on their big-screen TV. I fell asleep just after he began speaking. My wife nudged me after it was over. She said he didn't stumble over any words, so I suppose his speech rose well above expectations.

Sing it- War...huh...what is it good for?....Ask George.

Bush didn't want the terrorist attack, but it appears to me that he is now in the midst of having one very long wargasm. Why should he want to see an early end to this war? It makes a nice diversion from the woes of the economy, the Enron fiasco, the crisis in our health care system, the crumbling infrastructure, etc. Remember how he was floundering before the war? This is a man with very few ideas.

It's natural that in times of crisis people rally around their leader. Sure enough, the polls report that W. has now achieved a near god-like status among us Americans. We've given him a blank check, and by George, he's going to cash it!

BTW, I don't blame George W. Bush for being who he is. I blame everyone of us for putting mediocre leaders in office. We get the government that we deserve.

Our first task is to save our democracy from the overwhelming influence of big-money. Secondly, wouldn't it would be a breath of fresh air if we would forget all this devisive foolishness about Democratic and Republican Parties, and remember that we are Americans first? Do 270 million people really view politics from only one of two perspectives? Why do these two private organizations have a complete strangle-hold on our government?

Michael
 
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BTW, I don't blame George W. Bush for being who he is. I blame everyone of us for putting mediocre leaders in office. We get the government that we deserve.

Our first task is to save our democracy from the overwhelming influence of big-money. Secondly, wouldn't it would be a breath of fresh air if we would forget all this devisive foolishness about Democratic and Republican Parties, and remember that we are Americans first? Do 270 million people really view politics from only one of two perspectives? Why do these two private organizations have a complete strangle-hold on our government?
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~~~

Ditto.

~~~

Counterbalance
 
orthogonal ...

I take it that you were one of the few other persons going door to door
for Ralph Nader?

And how about you, Counterbalance?

Curious.

Take care :D
 
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I can assure you, Chagur, that I go door-to-door for no one.

Least of all a politician.

;)

~~~

Takin' care.

Counterbalance
 
Actually, I did end up voting for Nader.

After John McCain dropped out, my interest in the election began to wane. I had it in mind that this would be the first presidential election I would not vote in since I'd turned 18. In the end I couldn't just stand by and not vote, so I voted for Nader. And no, I don't think Nader was a great candidate either.

Michael
 
Lost my cherry in '64 ...

First time I did a 'door to door' was for Barry Goldwater ... And the last.
Couldn't believe that the Republican Party was acting as though the guy
didn't exist and handing the election to Johnson.

Voted for Nader this last time around even though I felt it was a waste.
Kind of a protest vote, I guess. Just couldn't see voting for Bush or Gore.

It's a bummer to find myself voting that way, or because I think that one
candidate is less of an ass-hole than the other.

Too bad McCain didn't stay in, sort of felt about him like I did about Goldwater.

Take care.
 
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i did my own thread on the state of adress, from a differnt view, read it if you dare :)
 
Ok, I'm sorry but his speech made me feel sick. The fact that he can still come out and prattle on about Iraq's WMD program and how Iraq were developing WMD's "for over a decade" has resulted in my gritting my teeth till they hurt. Has the man completely forgotten the 1980's in particular? Has he put the Reagan regime that far in a little box in his brain that he can't find it now? The fact that he can go out there and say crap like that while people die on a daily basis in a war that should never have happened shows that it is Bush who deserves to be in a cell in Guantanamo Bay :mad:.

And I'm sorry, but the so called "Freedom Corps" sounds a tad like 'Dad's Army'. God Bush scares the crap out of me. To think that a man like that could be President and have that much power over people and enforce such power over other countries of the world, it's scary. From Goofy's link:

America will lead by defending liberty and justice because they are right and true and unchanging for all people everywhere. No nation owns these aspirations, and no nation is exempt from them. We have no intention of imposing our culture -- but America will always stand firm for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity: the rule of law ... limits on the power of the state ... respect for women ... private property ... free speech ... equal justice ... and religious tolerance.
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It's a shame that the ideals he says America stands firm on do not exist in any way, shape or form in America.
 
What is your gut reaction to it?
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Are you kidding?

The nicest thing I can say about it is that I won't have to listen to another one.
It was one long diatribe of outright lies, sidelong lies, misrepresentations, omissions, threats, and fallacies. It totally ignored the financial problems that his administration has caused, the diplomatic debacle that the last three years have been, and the fact that a year ago he stood there and lied about WMDs in Iraq and ordered a war that cost 10,000 innocent civilian lives and a total of over 55,000 lives in total never seemed to occour to anyone listening. In any other country, he'd have been booed and jeered for even showing up - but here the whole lot simper and applaud?
What kind of spineless sycophants make up that government?
 
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