Joshua Holland: Bush's SOTU - Nixon Would Have Been Proud (Rangel laughs @ call for balanced budget)

http://www.alternet.org/stories/47090/

Bush's SOTU: Nixon Would Have Been Proud

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted January 24, 2007.

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!

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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.

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He called for a balanced budget -- the Fox camera caught new Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel laughing out loud -- and for earmark reform a week after the Dems passed a bill doing just that. He talked about "entitlement reform," saying that Social Security needed to be "saved" -- a narrative that economist Dean Baker calls Bush's "Social Security WMD story."

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You can tell Bush just doesn't get a shit anymore.

imaginable."

SOTU's are always boring...mostly political posturing and pandering. It's more a campaign speech than a real status of things. Generally, it's intended to start the Congressional session...and used to be accompanied by the budget so the House could get to work on it almost immediately. Not with this regime.

The only value of a boooshie SOTU is what he meeses up on or how badly he performs on the promises he made. I saw an interesting factoid that showed his approval at around 80% and his SOTU speech in '02 (right after 9/11) getting a 65% approval rating. Each year the numbers were less and less...a true dead cat bounce.

What makes this year's speech even more useless were two things. First, Congress beat him to the punch...unlike last year when the first session wasn't held until January 31st, Speaker Pelosi has gotten a lot done...a vast contrast to the previous session (speaking of which, anyone see Gym Teach Denny last night???). Second, the moron gave a totally dud of a speech on Iraq a couple weeks ago that is still stinging. His conveluted view of how the Sunnis & the Shiites are one and the same and want to kill us is so ludicrious now its insulting it comes out of someone in that capacity of power. Every time he opens his pie hole now, he either tunes more people out or gets them pissed off.

Watching the Repugnican side of the aisle was amusing...most those critters looked liked they'd rather be getting pre-frontal lobotomies than having to sit through the speech.

He'll be gone in 2 if he even lasts that long. Does he think we're his daddy or something? He runs up a big bill on the credit cards and and then hands them to us.