Let me get this straight. Because Bush is president (oh, and a Republican!), I should believe him when he says he is a good guy?
I don’t think so. Maybe when he confesses the lust in his heart…
Also, I should think somehow that this contradicts something?
I think to ‘contradict’ is to make an argument, not an unsupported assertion.
If I assert that I am a polka-dotted green person, does that make me right?
If the president asserts that he is a polka-dotted green person, should I believe him?
Personally, I assume no one was convinced of anything by the speech-- how can you trust a guy who smirks as he threatens war? And I hope that the news that the weapons inspectors refuted many of his ridiculous claims reaches as far.
State of the Union speeches usually don’t do much to change people’s mind, and it doesn’t matter who the president is that gives them. First of all, people who really don’t like the guy tend not to watch, and, among the people who do watch, people who like the President tend to think it’s a good speech, and people who dislike the President tend to think its a bad one.
:: Banquetbear cocks his head slightly to the left ::
…consider me slightly confused by your OP, but are you saying that we should be considering the Americans as either good or bad guys? I find the notion absurd.
…what effect did the SOTU have on those of us watching from overseas? Well, from the point of view of my household, it didn’t make us feel secure or safer at all.
We found the speech to be absolutely bizarre: when he talked about a disease that needed to be cured at the start of the speech we thought it he was talking about Terrorism, then he rambled about Aids and Tax Cuts and Hydrogen Powered Cars for goodness sakes-and all we could think about was, are you for real?
Then he threw up strawman arguements and practicly invoked Godwin’s law by talking about “Hitlerism”, which was quite funny-I imagined if his speech was the OP here in Great Debates he would have been torn to shreds.
…so my impression of Americans hasn’t changed really at all in the last twenty years-but my impression of your leadership is extremely worrying. Good or bad? Can that really be answered?
The Devil, Dear December, is in the details. The President him may waive the bloody shirt and give grand whoops for the Starry Banner and the Great Bird of Liberty until the cows come home, but I’m not buying it until the checks are signed and in the mail. To think that just under and hour of feel-good rhetoric out of the chief magistrate is a fair and complete statement of the Administration’s intentions, motivations and objectives is just delusional.
AIDS in Africa? Drug rehabilitation? Improved schools? Hydrogen cell autos? A meaningful Osama-Sadam connection? The rest of the litany of the State of the Union? Let’s see the details. Let’s see the money; let’s see the evidence.
Somehow, every time we come up on this annual exercise in smoke and mirrors I am reminded of generations of sports fans waiving their foam fingers and shouting “We’re Number One.” The President, however, seems to be shouting “I Can Lick Any Man in the House.”
Here is the point, nothing placed on prime time TV and spoon fed to the Great Uninformed can safely be regarded as anything more than the equivalent of a commercial advertisement. When told that buying a certain brand of beer will make you irresistible to leggie beauties from Nordic countries, do you believe it? Of course you don’t. In the face of that same sort of crass self-promotion delivered by a talking suit even your actuary’s heart and brain should at some primitive level set off the BS alarm. If then, you don’t accept beer commercials as reliable, why do you do you accept this out-pouring of balderdash as accurately reflecting any thing but the manipulations and machinations of literally scores of political consultants and public relations types. Better he just said that he can lick any man in the house and thumped on his chest a couple times. That at least would have been honest.
Well, as a conservative who already thinks that we’re the “good guys”, I thought the speech was quite good, though not great. I think he spelled out the case for Iraq pretty well, inasmuch as he only offered a couple new tidbits of information. (Other new info to be disclosed by Powell on Wednesday, I presume.) His proposal on Medicare was unsurprising, but sounded good. His commitment to combatting AIDS in Africa was a surprise, and a good one, though I’ll reserve final judgement for when I see the details. It’s not just a matter of shipping a bunch of drugs over there; giving medications that need to be taken thrice per day and kept refrigerated is not trivial, when the people have no clocks or referigerators.
The Prelude to War bit was the money-shot of the whole affair - essentially a declaration of declaration of war. I thought he handled it nicely - two lines stand out: First, the one about “Let’s just say [the terrorists] won’t be around anymore”, or however it was said. The man’s got balls. Secondly, “If this isn’t evil, then evil has no meaning.” True, dat.
If I were a Typical Democrat, though, I would probably share tomndebb’s sentiment:
There’s nothing that any conservative republican could ever say that would not “confirm” that they were a cynical demoagogue, or whatnot. Bush probably won over a few undecideds in the crowd, but the lines in the sand were pretty much drawn months ago. As Bush might say, you’re either with him or against him.
Jeff
If it were GWB who said, thought, and felt those things, I might agree with you.
But since a team of speechwriters wrote, Rove told him to say it, and no one knows what (or if) Bush thinks, all we have to go on is his delivery of those lines.
I saw him say the words. And I question his integrity.
What I would like to see is more of Bush trying to be a “good guy” in his actions rather than his words. I mean, it is great that he spent about as much time talking about a program for hydrogen cars as his dividend tax cut but:
(1) This does little to erase the fact that his environmental record is horrible, particularly when it involves actually doing something that might make an industry exec mad at him. I mean, noone is going to argue about having free money thrown at them…How about telling the automobile manufacturers that there is going to be a significant increase in CAFE standards?
(2) The hydrogen car program is $1.2 billion and it is not clear if all of that is really new money anyway. The dividend tax cut is over $300 billion. This makes one wonder if the hydrogen car represents a profound commitment or a little bit of window-dressing.
All in all, what I find most troubling about the speech is that Bush seems to think that if he talks like a moderate, he can govern from the far right. For example, you don’t have to do the right things on the environment, you just have to give them nice names like “Clear Skies Initiative” to mean “weaken the Clean Air Act”.
That is certainly not true for me. I don’t think that Daddy Bush was all that cynical, and he was far too inept in his delivery to be a good demagogue. Reagan, of course, was all demagogue, but I never found him to be cynical. (Stupid, perhaps). OTOH, Clinton was clearly cynical and was definitely a demagogue after his first two years. (He actually engaged in some half-hearted leadership, initially, folded when his own party refused to support him, and then went off to consolidate power after the Republicans swept into Congress.)
December you are even more naive than your usual if you think for just a minute that 40 minutes of speech will change the opinion of the world about your leadership.
I don’t like Mr. Bush, my whole country doesn’t care about him and I can assure you that most of the WORLD population doesn’t care about him either. The sad fact is that americans usually don’t give a damm about the opinions of the rest of planet (present company not included). At the end neither Germany, nor France, not even the U.N. will stop you. If you want to invade Irak you’ll do it and if you want to invade Sweden I am sure Bush will find some evidence linking Abba with Osama.
And that will be a huge problem in the years to come for americans. I can assure you that in Argentina at least there is no hatred of americans but you should read our papers or watch our news or hear the common man in the street. I assure you you’ll have to work a lot to gain not only our respect back but our confidence. We see you now as an empire marching aginst it second victim. We are wondering who are the next one and hope it isn’t near here (Colombia).
In Latin America we never trusted you, after all many of your cold war battles were fought in here and there is even an idiom about the american goverments “You should do not as we do but as we tell you to do”. That means that at least in this region you always talked about democracy, human rights, etc. And put in place or supported the worst tyrants. that changed in the 90 adn unfortunatelly changed again on 11/09/01.
Let’s all hope that Simon Bolivar words will not become true: “Americans will be the disgrace of the world”.
I appreciate your input, Estilicon. It’s what the OP invited. Obviously this is not pleasant news for me to hear.
Just to clarify, I presume you tend to have leftist leainings. Does the POV reflected in your post also the view of mainstream Argentianians? Is there a faction there which thinks well of America and of our President?
…December, with all due respect, your position and this thread continues to puzzle me. I have “rightist” leanings, if you could describe it that way, and I do not like Mr Bush at all. In a New Zealand Hearald Poll coducted yesterday 90% of New Zealanders do not support a war on Iraq without express United Nations sanction-and even then a significant amount of NZ’ers dont think we should go to war at all.
…having said that, we don’t hate the United States, and your attempt to stereotype the situation (for example “is there a faction there which thinks well of America and of our President?”) makes no sense. Just because we disaprove of the United States actions, why should we hate the United States? As I stated, my view of Americans is the same now as I had ten years ago-it hasn’t changed. I think that they rock.
…this is not a good guy bad guy situation. Is that how you see the world?
That’s how I interpreted Entsilicon’s post, perhaps incorrectly. Although he said that Argentinians didn’t hate America, he also said some fairly mean things about our country.
I appreciate your responses. They agree with other things I’ve read. It seems that Bush is quite unpopular internationally, even though he’s quite popular domestically.
You interpreted me incorrectly. The worst part is that, knowing I was dealing with you I tried to state my opinions very carefully. Perhaps I am not eloquent enough.
I don’t hate U.S.A. for me it is very difficult to hate an artificial entity, I don’t hate U.S.A. I don’t hate my local bank or River Plate (famous argentinian soccer team).
I am from the left of the politcial spectrum, center-left to be precise (if that means anything in this decadent times were ideologies are dead).
I have always been a critic of your country and it’s dealings with my region. That involment caused at least hundred of thousands of dead wasn’t a consequence of the cold war. It started at the turn of the century and the best example is Panama secession. The conclussion is that when your interest are in jeopardy you will do anything to protect them, and always you have the tendency of masquerading them with “Democracy” or “Human rights” or “Fighting evil”, etc. The first and most important of human rights is living and you country denied that right to thousands.
Of course I am speaking of your country foreign policy. I am not saying that you December or any other american comitted those atrocities. I am not the only one many american dopers are also critic of your contry’s dealing with the world.
I am also a critic of Europe, the Roman Empire and my country because my dear December all human institutions are by nature imperfect, it is our duty to do whatever we can to improve them.
Also when I have to applaud your country and it’s policies I do it. I am no Chumpsky. Overall I’ll have to say that U.S.A has done much better things than worst, that is not enough for me and it shouldn’t be enough for you either.
I won’t say “Hey I have a lots of american friends” because unfortunately I don’t have any. That is my loss but when I am at the computer I always open Winamp and play my favourite pieces. The better part of the time I have been spending writing this was easied by Barber’s Adagio (not now, I am listening to Kreisler’s Liebesleid). Save this paragraphs an re read them whenever you think I am a fundamentalist trying to destroy your country.
Now to answer your question let me tell you that my opinion about your current leadership is shared by 90% of our population, yo should be scared. Not because we represent a threat to your country but because we are a fairly conservative society, if you had the chance to read our right wing opinion makers this day you would think you were reading one of Catro’s paper. If that is us imagine what a not very conservative society is thinking of your country this days.
I am scared. People outside of the United States see the current President in a totally different light than American citizens do. This difference makes us think less of each other. It threatens our countries’ long-term friendship.
I very much appreciate your response. It has opened my eyes.
We also should keep in mind that as our current president sinks us further and further into debt – whether necessary or not – we will be needing international financial help more and more.
We shouldnt be burning any bridges or making any enemies among the more economically powerful nations. Rumsfeld speaks of the “old Europe” being France and Germany, while “vast numbers” of other European countries support us.
France and Germany may be having economic problems right now (like just about everyone else in the world), but they continue to be, with England, the economic powers of the continent.
