-- Jake Rosenfeld 11:05 AM | link

 
BET YOU'RE WISHING WE HAD A LOCKBOX RIGHT ABOUT NOW, AREN'T YOU? Wow. I'm going to try to limit myself mainly to comments on the substance of the State of the Union address. But, wow. Our president really is one cocky sonofabitch, isn't he? If all you paid attention to was Bush's attitude during the speech -- even if you tuned out all of the actual words -- you would have thought that in the past year he'd cured cancer, gone to the moon himself, and won the Super Bowl. Presidents are supposed to radiate confidence when giving these speeches, and I realize that he did win a war last year (although almost no one argued that he wasn't going to be able to run Saddam out of power -- the real challenge was post-war Iraq and I wouldn't crow too loud about that accomplishment just yet).

But this was beyond confident, this was beyond arrogant. Halfway through the speech, I turned to my friend Melissa and said that although I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was, the president seemed even more swagger-y than usual. We eventually decided that it was a scolding attitude that came through, the way he kept raising other people's criticisms and then warning them not to question him again. But I've changed my mind. What we witnessed tonight was an hour-long display of trash-talking. And this time Bush may have taken it too far.

His initial remarks about the Patriot Act -- "Key provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire next year" -- earned Democratic applause, which could have thrown him off except that the phrase was followed by, "The terrorist threat will not expire on the same schedule." Nice line. But not as nice as Bush apparently thought it was. You could see in his face how pleased he was to have publicly shamed the Democrats who fell for the rhetorical trap. And thus began Taunt Fest '04.

A few observations, delivered at random, because I really need to return to grading:

-- Of Afghanistan: "America is honored to be their friend." Hmm. Does that mean we'll be putting money to help Afghanistan into the federal budget this year? Because I'm sure they're touched by our friendship, but they're going to need a heck of a lot more than friendship bracelets to continue the reconstruction effort.

-- Speaking of the success in Iraq, Bush noted, "Having broken the Baathist regime...", except the way Bush pronounced it, I heard, "Having broken the Baptist regime," which made me giggle.

-- Unbelievable statement of the evening: "For diplomacy to be effective, words must be credible." The president meant to imply that our overwhelming show of force in Iraq convinced Libya to engage in diplomatic negotiations with us and the British to dismantle their weapons capability. But, come on. "Words must be credible"?? And he said it with a straight face. Yeah, because no one will be reminded that in this exact same spot one year ago he proclaimed that Iraq was purchasing uranium to make nuclear bombs.

-- Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" of last year's speech have been downgraded to "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities." How lame is that? Doesn't really roll off the tongue, does it? Doesn't sound like a compelling justification for war, either, does it? Ted Kennedy had some classic reaction shots throughout the evening, but his eyeroll on this one was world-class. And I'm a pretty masterful eye-roller myself.

-- "Americans will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country." I can't for the life of me figure out why other countries think we're arrogant. That little beauty set our diplomatic image back even further. Because as Wes Clark pointed out to Ted Koppel tonight when Koppel incorrectly tried to insist that Bush didn't attempt to link Al Qaeda and Iraq in this speech, that statement implies that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the U.S. And although Saddam Hussein was a very bad man and bad leader, he and his government did not pose a threat to the national security of the U.S. They just didn't. Other countries aren't trying to hold us back from pursuing a global war on Al Qaeda. They did, however, have some questions about going into Iraq. Bush not only blithely dismisses those questions, but implies that it was inappropriate to even raise them in the first place.

-- On tax cuts for the wealthy: "The American people are using their money far better than government would have and you were right to return it." I'm not even going to list here the number of helpful programs that were canned by Bush/Cheney Inc. because the tax cut took away the revenue to fund them. And I'm too tired to complain about government-bashing. Well, yeah, if the choice is spending money on going to the moon or giving it back to people, I'm all for tax cuts. But there are a hell of a lot of good things government can do and it's unseemly to pretend otherwise.

-- "We can cut the deficit in half in the next five years." Laying aside the pesky facts about where this particular deficit came from, this is simply not true. We're going to raise discretionary spending by four percent, make the tax cuts permanent, save Social Security, go to the moon, and cut the deficit in half? That's truly voodoo economics, as Bush's father used to say.

-- Steroids. Everyone who ever made fun of Bill Clinton for his midnight basketball or school uniform proposals must apologize right now. This totally nonsensical section provided one of my favorite quotes of the night, though: "Steroids send the wrong message -- that there are shortcuts to accomplishment." Which should have been followed up with, "Actually, there are shortcuts to accomplishment. I should know."

-- But my absolute favorite quote of the night was this, although it was in the context of gay marriage: "We cannot allow activist judges to force their arbitrary will on the people." Anybody else out there thinking about Bush v. Gore (2000)?

-- "Our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage." If I was Dick Cheney's daughter, I don't think I'd ever speak to him again after watching him rise to applaud that line.

I suppose this shouldn't come as a surprise, but I didn't expect Bush to lace his entire speech with strawman arguments. From start to finish, the thing was chock-full of false choices -- you can go backward or you can go forward. You can undermine educational standards or you can support me. You can tear apart the American family or you can support me. You can encourage children to get STDs or you can support me.

Bill Clinton often addressed his critics in the State of the Union, but it was usually in a gee, you fellas just haven't seen the light yet, kind of way. His tone always implied that they would eventually come on over and support him because it was the right thing to do. Bush's tone implies that his critics are beyond salvation, that they hold opinions counter to his because they are immoral people who want America to fail. That's in keeping with his good-and-evil view of the world. But it's not a terribly smart way to talk to the American people. It assumes that there are a whole lot of voters who agree with every single thing Bush/Cheney Inc. has done. If there's a moderate Republican teacher out there who isn't pleased with what the No Child Left Behind Act has meant for her teaching, there's not much of a place for her in the Bush world. She's suddenly one of "them."

A few quick comments on the Democrats. First of all, how cute was Jesse Jackson, Jr.'s daughter? Why didn't she give the Democratic Response? I'm obviously a fan of Tom Daschle, so I was pleased to see him and I do think that he gave a pretty good speech. It's hard for anyone to do well in that format -- no audience, just blankly staring into a camera, it's an Oval Office speech without the power of the office. But Nancy Pelosi was dreadful. Why couldn't we have Hillary Clinton give the response? Or John Lewis? Or Jesse Jackson, Jr.? Or Ted Kennedy -- heck, he's been killing them on the stump for John Kerry and he's got nothing to lose at this point. I know that all sorts of politics goes into choosing these speakers, but next time some common sense should go into it as well.

That said, a few excellent lines came out of the response: "We must show our greatness, not just our strength." "We cannot reward the accumulation of wealth over the dignity of work." "Social Security should be a guarantee, not a gamble." I particularly liked the point that health care premiums have increased over the past few years at a rate not matched by the money Americans are supposedly receiving from these vaunted tax cuts. In other words, the money that Bush says is driving the economy isn't enough for Americans to keep pace with rising health care costs. And finally, the point about No Child Left Behind -- that it was a two-way promise; schools would raise their standards and the government would give them the resources to do so -- was incredibly effective: "America's schools are holding up their end of the bargain. The president is not meeting his."

The thing that Republicans need to understand about trash-talking is that eventually you have to back it up. You don't win games by running your mouth. You have to bring it. And although Bush talked a good game and tried to scare the opposition away from even showing up in November, he's vulnerable. If he doesn't know it yet, if he's so cocky that he's going to just rest on his laurels for awhile, so much the better.

Americans are going to expect more job growth than a puny 1,000 jobs per month. They're going to expect to see the casualty rates in Iraq fall instead of rise. They're going to ask where that bid Laden guy is and why we haven't caught him. And although Tom DeLay may lead the cheering section for the Patriot Act, ordinary Americans don't like it very much. So unless you've got something to back up that swallowed-the-canary, trash-talking smirk, you'd better tone it down, Mr. President.

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-- Amy Sullivan 1:55 AM | link