An Irrelevant State of The Union by David Corn

[Catherine Vincent]

January 23, 2007
An Irrelevant State of the Union
A posting of mine from the Comment Is Free blog of The Guardian....

In Washington, State of the Union addresses are usually depicted as momentous events: a president explains what he has in mind for the nation and the world. Reporters and pundits devote much airtime and ink to previewing the Big Speech; administration officials work feverishly to get their pet projects and notions inserted into the text; members of the opposition party try to deflate it before the text is even finalized.

On the night of the event, senators, representatives, Cabinet members, foreign ambassadors, military leaders, and Supreme Court justices flock to the Capitol to be present (as stage props) for the delivery. And -- as a tradition has developed in recent years -- they crane their necks to see whom the president has invited to sit with the first lady, the choice being awash with heavy-handed symbolism. (In 2004, at George W. Bush's first State of the Union speech after he invaded Iraq, one of the guests chosen for this honor was Ahmad Chalabi, the wily Iraqi exile convicted of bank fraud whose Iraqi National Congress had funneled misleading intelligence about Saddam Hussein's WMDs into US intelligence and the media.) And after the speech, commentators rush to dissect the address, as if they are unlocking the DNA of the presidency. It's all quite a to-do.

Not this year. Bush's SOTU (as the abbreviators call the State of the Union) is likely to be one of most irrelevant annual speeches in years. He has already addressed the most pressing matter of his presidency. Two weeks ago, he presented a speech on his Iraq policy, announcing an escalation that would entail the dispatching of more than 20,000 additional troops, mostly to Baghdad. (After the speech Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted this was no "escalation," just an "augmentation.") For months -- ever since Bush dumped Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld following his party's loss of Congress - the public, the politicians, and the media had been waiting for Bush's "new" plan for Iraq. Bush unveiled that plan, to much political and popular opposition. Having had his say on Iraq, there is now not much else that anyone wants to hear him talk about.

Still, Bush is committed to standing at the lectern and unveiling policy proposals about problems other than Iraq. Yet with Congress in the hands of Democrats, his initiatives -- whatever they are --will generally face dismal odds. In the past, he used the State of the Union to call for a grand mission to send humans to Mars and for more energy independence. But such programs, even when Republicans controlled Congress, did not get far off the ground. His proposal for the partial privatization of Social Security -- once featured in a SOTU -- exploded in his face. Even Republicans now deride his Mars idea as a legendary SOTU misstep.

more.....
http://www.davidcorn.com/

[Maccagirl]

1. The only relevent thing the Chimp could say tonite

is "I resign. I have done enough harm to my country and the world. I'm sorry."