Bush's SOTU: Nixon Would Have Been Proud (AlterNet)

[marmar]

Bush's SOTU: Nixon Would Have Been Proud
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted January 24, 2007.

Bush's seventh State of the Union speech was loaded with proposals that will go nowhere and had little relationship with reality. So much for hoping that a 28 percent approval rating would teach him anything.

With 500 members of Congress packed into the peanut gallery, the attention of the nation's political and media establishments and millions of Americans hanging on his every word, the president of the United States gave his State of the Union address last night.

He does it every year -- it's in the Constitution!

Earlier yesterday, when asked by reporters what the best part of the speech was going to be, White House Spokesman Tony Snow replied, "You know, it's difficult to say. It's like looking in a drawer full of diamonds."

But those who were expecting some glittering bling-bling would have been disappointed; what made last night's SOTU noteworthy is that George W. Bush simply had nothing to say. It might have been the first time in American history.

Of course, everyone will pretend he said something important -- that it was a major address. The media will pick it apart and discuss its "significance"; lawmakers from both parties will quote bits and pieces of it to support or oppose this or that legislation; bloggers will remind us of what he said when he actually does the opposite and so on. But all you really need to know is that last night president George W. Bush could have come out on stage and, after pausing to let the ovation die down, he might have looked at the cameras with those beady little eyes and said, simply, "Folks, I got nothing. G'night!"

Yes, he went through the motions. After slowly making his way to the podium, straining to bear the weight of a 28 percent approval rating -- the lowest any president has had on the day of the Big Speech since Nixon's 1974 SOTU -- he engaged in a mini love-fest with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying, "I have a high privilege and distinct honor of my own -- as the first president to begin the State of the Union message with these words: Madam Speaker." It was, admittedly, a nice moment, even coming as it does 19 years after Pakistan had its first female prime minister.

He then gave a surprisingly smooth version of the usual boilerplate, laced heavily with tried-and-true focus-tested language. But consider what he really offered the American people last night, during what most folks consider to be a time of real crisis in this country. ....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/story/47090

[murielm99]

1. A drawer full of diamonds?

OMG!

Nucular, terra, Septimber 'leventh, terrists, unined states, terra...

Some diamonds.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[marmar]

2. I know....I think Snowjob snorted a drawer full of cocaine.

:)