2007 State of the Union

I was surprised in some ways with the State of the Union Address. This was the least outraged I've been about any of Bush's State of the Union Addresses. With that being said, there were still plenty of things that were shouted at the TV and several subtle things that have deep and freighting implications.

First, it is important to keep a couple things in mind when analyzing the address. Bush is treading on thin ice now that Democrats are the majority. His power is now in check and the public hates him (27% approval rating) and in order to get things done he has to play nice, which was very obvious in his presentation last night. His approval ratings are on par with Nixon right before he resigned due to unpopularity (and Watergate of course). Another component to keep in mind is that Bush is starting to think about his legacy as a president. In this regard things are looking really bad for him and many, even mainstream predictions, are admitting that he could be viewed among the worst, if not THE worst. He is looking for ways to leave something positive behind. I think he sees immigration and the earmark reform proposal as two things he can walk away from with positive results. He also mentioned strengthening Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. These are all things that he was trying to kill a couple years back.

There were several firsts for me in last night's address, one being that for a moment I found myself agreeing with President Bush. First there was the earmark reform proposal that he mentioned which is a badly needed reform. But then I was more amazed that he mentioned Darfur (www.SaveDarfur.org). It was just once, and just at the end of a thought but he mentioned. Darfur requires action however, and it isn’t the kind of action the Bush Administration is good at or has much experience with: Diplomacy. In the end, what truly matters is what he does, and not what he says in a live televised address.

Other than those few surprises there were the normal distortions, inaccuracies and infuriating positions that characterize Mr. Bush’s Presidency. Painting No Child Left Behind as the most successful education policy ever, discussing his initiatives in alternative fuels, touting a clean environment and a nearly balanced budget are all quiet laughable (and typical for that matter) in my mind.

Then there were two subtle points (again subtle because he has to play nice) that stick out as particularly dangerous in my mind. First, his mention of the Civilian Reserve Corps.

“Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them”

This is precisely the purpose of the National Guard. The problem this should remind us of, is that President Bush continues to use the National Guard as if they were full-time enlisted military. Sometimes referred to as a Stop-loss policy, it is by all means a “backdoor draft.” In fact there are lawsuits pending that are challenging the legality of the President’s continued inappropriate use of this force. So if the US creates a new Civilian Reserve Corps which is designed to do the National Guard’s job, this indicates to me that Bush intends to solidify the National Guard “backdoor draft” policy as a permanent functionality in US conflicts overseas.

The second frightening subtlety in Bush’s speech was the certainty with which he insisted “that to win the war on terror we must take the fight to the enemy.” He said it as if this is an uncontested fact. I see this as an attempt to solidify Bush’s doctrine of preemptive strike. This is the doctrine that brought us the Iraq War. A war based on lies and fabrications of imagined and exaggerated threats. This is the doctrine that has needlessly killed over 3000 US soldiers and untold Iraqi civilians. This is the doctrine that is not and should not be a certainty in US foreign policy. Preemptive strike is fuel for the war on terror, not an extinguisher.

I won’t say much more than I have already said in previous posts about the escalation of the Iraq war. I agree with the over 70% of the public, the majority of Congress, and the majority of military leaders who say it is a horrible idea and that we need to be focusing on drawing down US forces there or whole scale withdrawal.

That’s all for now. Hope to see you this weekend in Washington DC

Posted at Wednesday, January 24, 2007
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