My favorite dichotomy was the proclamation that we don’t need no stinkin’ permission slip to do whatever we damn well please wherever we damn well wish, but - uh - other sovereign nations apparently do not enjoy the same luxury within their own borders.
Here, let me draw up a li’l constitution for you. Now don’t trouble yore purty li’l head over such things. Have a co-cola.
There was also a great shot of Hillary. She was looking miserable, but as soon as she saw the camera on her she lit up with a huge smile.
At least I found it funny…
No, the real shame is the willingness of seemingly informed moderate conservatives to overlook the radical features which define this adminstration. One simply cannot be attentive to the actions of the Bush administration and at the same time believe its carefully framed image of conformity to conservative ideals unless one wants to be fooled.
And that’s a pity.
According to Zogby, 49% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Bush’s job performance, and 50% have an unfavorable view. (Statistically even, since the poll is +/- 3.5%.) That’s not a low approval rating, but it isn’t high either.
According to Zogby again (same link, further down the page) Bush is running behind ‘any Democrat’ 45% to 41%.
We can all be bullshitted for a little while, but eventually people figure out what’s really going on.
I saw that, too. She’s good. Kennedy won’t be running for president, so he can just let it all hang out.
The “permission slip” line was a good one. Those who mentioned it so far have failed to mention that it got the biggest applause of any line-- from both sides of the aisle.
Yeah, this address was much too political. He was talking to the American people instead of to Congress, so he took it into campaign mode. It doesn’t surprise me.
But not to worry. The Democrats have a plan to require country of origin labels on food. Such vision. Such leadership. 
Should I feel honored for being included in the State of the Union address? Oh wait, I got in through the same door as Iraq: threat.
And I noticed neither the Democratic response or any analysis (outside of the usual GLAAD, HRC, etc. stuff) in any significant way stood up in opposition to that section included in the SoTU.
I’m very disappointed today. 
This doesn’t mean much. When the average voter imagines the mythical “any Democrat” he typically conjures up a perfect combination of FDR, JFK, Harry Truman and only the competent parts of Jimmy Carter.
Once a nominee is actually chosen, and the voters get a good look at him, reality is likelt to disappoint.
Zogby, too, isn’t the only pollster out there, and he has a reputation for leading his questions left. Other pollss are showing Bush in much better shape
And those would be the “fair & balanced” polls, right? :rolleyes:
Whistle past graveyards much?
What strikes me as frightening about this is that Bush seems to always have this sort of smirky and maniacally gleeful look about him. Say what you will about his approval ratings, and the job that he is doing but you can not argue that the things that he is talking about and the things that have happened on his watch are deadly serious. His emotional state, to me, did not seem to indicate that he is taking his job very seriously and that this is all some sort of a game to him.
GW has a history of failed or marginally successful enterprises in the oil game so his record as president shouldn’t be too surprising. We were going to take out bin Laden and al Qaeda. But that was too hard so we invaded Iraq. The military part went fine which isn’t too surprising. The military establishment is good at selecting and training people who know how to carry out complex operations. However, the part that the civilian leadership managed isn’t working so well and now GW want the UN to help bail him out. Again, this is a GW characteristic.
Homeland security improvement consisted of gathering a group of disparate groups into a large, new bureaucracy. This bureaucracy has demonstrated little competence in airline security as shown by a number of tests in which uncleared people gained acess to sensitive airport areas. The intelligence agencies which didn’t catch the WTC were more or less left alone, unchanged and unimproved.
Homeland Security keeps juggling orange and yellow alert levels based on “message traffic” if we can believe what they say is their justification. Has everone forgotten how easy “message traffic” can be manipulated? Prior to the Normandy landings an entire phantom army, “commanded” by none other than Gen. George Patton himself, was created to fool the enemy as to the invasion plan and it was created solely by “message traffic.” And it seems to have worked, too.
The one characteristic that GW exhibits to me is that of outlining large schemes that are overoptimistic to the point of fatuity (Iraqi’s will dance in the streets at their liberation) without any knowledge or planning to carry them out, if that is even possible.
I’m afraid you’ve got Zogby figured wrong. Check this out from a 2000 Slate article:
While Zogby himself is an admitted liberal Democrat, his polls are fair, and typically compensate for where the Republicans’ figures are overlooked, due to the fact that Democrats are more likely to respond to polls than Republicans.
I have to stick up for Mr. Zogby’s fine organization. Apparently Mr. Moto’s been exposed to someone’s attempt to poison a well. Pow! Another blow against ignorance! Biff! Wham!
I felt Bush’s speech was pedestrian and uninspired. I don’t know when the State of the Union became a disjointed listing of pie in the sky policies that will never see the light of day. There was little passion and even less surprise in his address.
If possible I was more dissapointed by the Democrat’s response. Nancy Pelosi and her nine face lifts were halting and dull. Daschle was polished, but smirky and self-satisfied. Is there any rule that says that the response must be given by the respective minority leaders? Barbara Mikulski could have given an inspired response that would have the potential to overshadow Bush. Even Ted Kennedy could have done a better job of responding.
I felt like I wasted a couple of good hours of my life last night with nothing to show for it. As bad as Bush was, the Democrats weren’t much, if any, better.
I flipped to and from the speech during commercials in History Channel’s Barbarians show (somehow, flipping from Atilla the Hun to GWB seemed appropriate).
Watching what little of the speech, I was left wondering what in the heck people see in this guy. The dictionary should show his picture next to the word “smarmy”. After reading the speech later, I thought he seemed to be reaching to the right, the far right, and the really far right. The bit about the activist judges was a real howler, what he meant was judges that don’t rule in his favor.
I hope monstro is being overly pessimistic. The average American is starting to wake up to the fact that the administration pulled a fast one on them in Iraq. The average American isn’t getting rich off the Bush tax giveaway. Should the Democratic nominee be someone worthy of the challenge (i.e., Kerry or Edwards), Bush is going to have a real battle on his hands.
Even better were the repeated shots of Charles Rangel sleeping. I wonder if he snored…
You know, this is really at the heart of something that has been bothering me for a very long time. What do we have to do to get some actual sane leaders?
Take heart, Young Monstro, yes we are a stupid and ignorant people, but give thanks to your secular or non-secular, god or godess above that only about 70% of we Americans are stupid and ignorant. That is the precentage of Americans who will vote for Bush in November. At that time you can pout and whine along with the other 90% of the posters to this thread.
Hey! Then you each can tell each other how smart you all are, and together you all can lament the sorry, sad, state of affairs that happens when free Americans, both stupid and ignorant, are allowed to vote. __
_BUSH IN FOUR
That may or may not be true. But what I said refutes Bricker’s claim as worded, regardless.
If the nominee is Kerry or Edwards or even Wesley Clark, my bet is that the winner will look at least as good as the hypothetical ‘any Democrat’. In Edwards’ case, maybe even better. (JFTR, I think Dean is toast as far as the nomination is concerned. He’s not this year’s McGovern or Carter; he’s this year’s Gene McCarthy. He’s given the other candidates the backbone to take on Bush and the GOP, but they can do that and win, and he can’t. So he’s the victim of his own success.)
First I’d heard of that. (His alleged reputation, that is. I’m sure there are other pollsters out there.)
I deeply, deeply resented two things:
the “activist judges” bit. Straight from the segregationists of the civil-rights era. Disgusting. Some things never change.
his insistence that the military represents the right solution to terrorism. The Prez is given very few powers in the Constitution, and Presidents have a long history of using the “Commander in Chief” title to pry open the door and accrue to themselves as much power as possible. That’s the only reason why he militarized the terrorism problem.
I disagree. There are many very reasonable, non-racist arguments to be made against an activist judiciary. However, I do think bringing up the subject of gay marriage in a SotU address is inappropriate. We’ve got bigger fish to fry as a country than that issue. It’s an issue for the states to decide.
I thought the biggest disappointment in this address was the failure to mention ObL. He is enemy #1 and should be topic #1. Sure, Bush talked about al Qaeda, but to not mention ObL reeks of cowardice. There’s no reason not to be honest and admit that we’ve failed to capture him-- the country needs to be reassured that we’re still trying our best.
You had plenty to show for it, you now know how George Bush is going to put the loin cloth over all of our eyes and pretend to be somewhat of a moderate.