State of Non-Union

Despite my attempts to not make this a political blog, I once again found myself watching last night's State of the Union address with a drink in my hand to dull the pain of constantly beating my head against the wall and an open WordPad window in which to type my comments. By the end of the speech, I had been reduced to making angry guttural noises at the television and saved the notes to edit later, choosing to regain my sanity by watching a few episodes of Wonderfalls.

Today, in looking over my notes and other reponses across the internet, I have found that most of my work had been done for me. Peter Begala pretty much matched my comments, point by point. Dana Stevens at Slate caught the dogtag incident and commented on it. Fred Kaplan echoed my concerns about the Iraqi exit strategy and the "as you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you" comment towards the people of Iran. I'm not the only one who is still frustrated about Bush's issues with proper enunciation; Timothy Noah commented on the mispronunciation of "social security." (Although I should have given up by this point, I'm still hung up on the whole "nuclear" thing.) And of course, the good folks at This is Not Over have continued to comment on the state of things in our fair country since November.

So here are a few things upon which I would like to comment:

"As a new Congress gathers, all of us in the elected branches of government share a great privilege: we have been placed in office by the votes of the people we serve."

Or at least the 51% who voted for him. The final count was 60,608,582 vs. 57,288,974. And remember, 60.7% of the eligible voters participated. And how many more were unregistered? W seems to forget he won with the smallest margin of victory for a sitting president in U.S. history in terms of the percentage of the popular vote. (Bush received 2.5% more than Kerry; the closest previous margin won by a sitting President was 3.2% for Woodrow Wilson in 1916.) In terms of absolute number of popular votes, his victory margin (approximately 3 million votes) was the smallest of any sitting President since Harry S. Truman in 1948. I would hardly consider this a mandate, although he has referred to it as such. I suppose I should order one of those trendy awareness bracelets to remind Bush of this, but I can't decide if I want a blue one or a black one.

"Over the next several months, on issue after issue, let us do what Americans have always done, and build a better world for our children and grandchildren."

And apparently that better world we're leaving consists of a giant debt: Senator Harry Reid estimated it as a "birth tax" of $36,000 per child. Or perhaps this is the world he was talking about.

Honestly, what color is the sky in W's world?

"Now we must demand better results from our high schools, so every high school diploma is a ticket to success. We will help an additional 200,000 workers to get training for a better career, by reforming our job training system and strengthening America's community colleges. And we will make it easier for Americans to afford a college education, by increasing the size of Pell Grants."

But if a high school diploma is a ticket to success, then why would we need to go to community college? What about the people that already have degrees (in some cases more than one degree) that watched their jobs get outsourced to another country? Are they supposed to go back to school again, but this time to a trade school? And about those Pell Grants... do I understand this correctly: you're increasing the size of the Pell Grants, but less people will be eligible once they change the eligibility guidelines?

"To make our economy stronger and more productive, we must make health care more affordable, and give families greater access to good coverage, and more control over their health decisions."

Well, unless those decisions have anything to do with reproductive rights.

"To keep our economy growing, we also need reliable supplies of affordable, environmentally responsible energy."

Funny that he's not mentioning drilling in Alaska when he's touting his new energy plan.

"It is time for an immigration policy that permits temporary guest workers to fill jobs Americans will not take, that rejects amnesty, that tells us who is entering and leaving our country, and that closes the border to drug dealers and terrorists."

Perhaps if the pay were comensurate with the hours worked and the working conditions, some Americans would be willing to take the jobs. But I guess we're going to be too busy taking classes at community college. What kind of rights will these "guest workers" have? Are we creating a special new type of second class citizen that will be allowed to work the crappy jobs for crappy wages but have next to no rights otherwise?

I'm not going to comment on the Social Security portion of his speech. Others have covered it much more succintly than I ever could have. I'm rather fond of Senator Reid's referral to the program as "social security roulette" and am quite happy that he brought up the $2 trillion price tag attached to this program. Guess Bush lost that notecard, huh?

I never ever want to hear the words "culture of life" ever again. I don't appreciate the code talk. I didn't appreciate it during the debates, and it's even more offensive now that the media has whipped out their decoder rings and is sharing the code with us.

"Because one of the deepest values of our country is compassion, we must never turn away from any citizen who feels isolated from the opportunities of America."

Note that this was the lead-in to the discussion of faith-based initiatives and community groups. So how does this offer of compassion apply to those who don't subscribe to the beliefs of those faith-based initiatives or community groups? Single parents? Atheists, agnostics, or non-Christians? Women with unwanted pregnancies? Gay, lesbian, or transgendered citizens? I'm concerned about the amount of help that would be offered, when there's an outcry over something as basic as two children of same-sex parents being enrolled in a Catholic school kindergarten.

"Our third responsibility to future generations is to leave them an America that is safe from danger, and protected by peace. We will pass along to our children all the freedoms we enjoy -- and chief among them is freedom from fear."

Now I realize that this was his big sweeping introduction into the subject of homeland security and the war on terror, but I'm a little disturbed by this statement when this administration has functioned mostly on keeping us in a state of fear, most of it unfounded fear. Earlier in this very speech, Bush outlined the projected failure of Social Security to scare us into adopting the PRA plan. He's been touting his proposed marriage amendment as a way to protect the sanctity of the "sacred institution" of marriage. Protection from whom? I've asked this before, but how is allowing two people who love each other to form a legal bond damaging the "sanctity" of marriage? (In related news, did you know that the approval of Issue 1 in Ohio now makes it OK for an unmarried man to beat the crap out of his girlfriend without the repercussions of domestic violence charges, because domestic violence only applies to married couples? In the immortal words of Chrissie Hynde, "Hey, oh, way to go, Ohio.")

Color coded terror alerts. Duct tape and plastic dropcloths. Weapons of mass destruction. Imminent threats. How is this fearmongering doing anything but keeping the country on edge, making it easier to pass the legislation the administration wants?

And yes, I was moved by the reports of the first free elections in Iraq. Who wasn't? But our armed forces were still sent there under false pretenses. Is lying about something OK if the end results are favorable? Do the ends justify the means? Does this give the administration free reign to misinform the nation about whatever they see fit, and we should just cross our fingers and hope that things turn out for the best?

And while we're on the subject of the Iraqi elections, the members of the House that dyed their fingers to emulate the Iraqis who voted left a bad taste in my mouth. In my opinion, taking a meaningful symbol and cheapening it like that is akin to last year's protests of Kid Rock wearing the American flag as a poncho during the halftime show at the Super Bowl.

It's going to be a long four years. How much time is left, again?