The President delivered his State of the Union address on Tuesday. Of course he acknowledged Nancy Pelosi as the first woman speaker of the house as was to be expected. He even congratulated the Democrat majority. That probably shocked the left side of the aisle. The first half of the speech was rather dull. Bush was not exactly trying to bring forward any major proposals. He was probably advised not to do so as with the Democrat controlled Congress, it would be quite difficult to get anything done. The lamest of the lame ducks apparently.
What was long over due, however, was his description of the situation in Iraq. He finally was able to explain to the American people how failure in Iraq would cause catastrophic consequences, not only in the Middle East, but here at home. By far the best line in the speech was when he told Congress that when they voted for the war they voted for victory. I was surprised to see that many Democrats did not stand up and applaud. I suppose those individuals would like to lose and lose badly. Maybe this is the true Democratic stance.
As I’ve stated in past articles, Democrats only adhere to poll numbers and unfortunately they are listening to the wrong poll. In his response, Senator Webb stated that most troops oppose the war in Iraq. What planet is he from? I’m not certain what poll he got his data from but just a quick google search and you will see it’s quite the opposite. There is no question that Iraq was the main issue, in fact, the President spent a lot of time explaining his view and his decision to send more troops. I applaud him for asking for Congress to give the new plan time. As with every plan, time is needed for it to succeed. We shall see.
Along with Iraq, in the second half of the speech, Bush discussed his health care reform plan, which is approved by many conservative analysts. I’ll spare you the details. The democrats will never pass this legislation anyway. However, it is a very strong reform plan that would improve the health care situation in this country a great deal. Energy and global warming was on the table as well. This issue has been around for years, but it seems ever since Al Gore’s documentary, which is now nominated for an academy award, go figure, I will be the first to state he will win, then we will have to listen to him drone on and on about this topic. Nevertheless, it is an important issue to address.
More importantly, however, is the issue of alternative fuels, which in my opinion is the precursor to the fight against global warming itself. One thing that was absent from the speech, and not surprisingly, was any mention of family values. This enraged some Christian conservative groups. But what they do not realize is that Democrats do not care about family values, they parade their children and grand children around as if they do, but in the end they vote against every bill that would help these children succeed. We should hope that the no child left behind extension is passed and that a school choice program is put in place. If not, we should start saving now to send our children to private schools.
It is clear that the President’s agenda has shifted some with the Democrats in charge. It is also clear that he will not give in to the demands of the Dems either. The sooner the Democrats see that we are at war, the better. The sooner they start learning and reading for themselves again as opposed to listening to CNN opinion polls, the better. But I know as you do, these are only dreams that will probably never come true.