My thoughts on the SOTU

This will definitely be a post for the records. For once, I'm not going to bash the President.

Yep, you heard me correctly.

Don't get me wrong: I think that his State of the Union address last night was complete and utter garbage (so much for my not bashing Bush). I also maintain that this speech (along with the fifteen or so that I've actually watched since following politics) is a clear and televised reminder that there is no such thing as "bipartisanship". But I must admit that Bush was brilliant in his delivery. Normally, you would never hear me say "Bush" and "brilliant" in the same sentence (unless of course I was saying "Bush is soooo not brilliant"), but I have to concede. The 2007 SOTU was...well...brilliant. Now let's be clear on something: when I say that, I'm not implying that it was brilliant in the sense that the speech's highlights were lucid, well thought out, and feasible. Rather, I mean brilliant as in clever. The president was clever in his attempts to continue pushing his destructive agenda; at the expense of taking smaller losses in other areas.

For starters, consider that he faced a situation completely foreign to him. For the first time during his presidency (or, as I like to see it, his reign), he was pitching his SOTU ideas to a Democrat-controlled Congress. He and his folks were no longer the home team. But despite all of that, he was able to stick to his guns on the most important issues to him and remained unrattled doins so. Stubborn and pig-headed? Yes. Brave? Yes. Stupid? Not really.

However, despite remaining true to his position on Iraq (I'll be writing on this soon), he willingly gave the Democrats some appeasement when he addressed liberally-based issues. He started by giving a shout-out to Nancy Pelosi in a pretty classy and dignified way. Then he addressed issues like immigration reform, health care reform (though he didn't present solutions. He basically said that tax cuts would help make prescription meds more affordable. Now that was a pretty stupid thing to say.) and "global climate change" (he didn't say "global warming", but we get the point). Hell. He even mentioned Darfur. Though he painted an inaccurate picture of the economy and didn't even touch Katrina, stem-cell research, or gay marriage; he was quick to deliver many issues to the Dems on a silver platter. Openly discussing and "reaching across the aisle" to address Democratic agendas was a pretty calculated move to get more people to subscribe to his nonsensical viewpoints about the war, connections between Iraqis, the Taliban and (interestingly) Hezebollah, along with the escalation of troops. Apparently, it worked. I mean, did you notice when he got a standing ovation when he equated increasing military presence in Iraq to "supporting the troops"? Even if he pissed off some of his already defecting buddies in the GOP, he at least bought more time and less opposition from the Dems.

The fact is: Bush cut some of his minor losses to acheive his ultimate goal: pushing forward with his foreign relations agenda in Iraq (or lack thereof) and gaining support for doing it. Basically he told his Democrat-controlled Congress that "I'll give you these things (all the issues I mentioned earlier) and I'll take this thing (Iraq). Support, in this case, doesn't necessarily mean agreeing with him or even standing by him. Instead, support in this case means 'no real opposition of'.

That's why Bush's speech was brilliant. Thank you.

*Pause for standing ovation*

- ACL