STATE OF THE UNION 2005 LIVEBLOGGING….Another year, another State of the Union address to liveblog. Shall we begin?
Wrapup: The international part of the speech was mushier, more platitudinous than usual. In fact, what’s interesting is that I think that entire section of the address could have been given by a President Kerry with no more than a few sentences changed.
The domestic stuff was just a laundry list. And what happened to healthcare? That was supposed to be a big focus of the speech, but he barely mentioned it. Nothing about tax reform, either. If he’s serious about the clean energy stuff and the basic physical research, that’s good news, but I’ll bet he isn’t. I’ll wait to see the actual numbers on all that stuff. And the plea from Karl Rove’s boss for bipartisan comity was either laughable or revolting, depending on your temperament. But it might play well in Peoria.
Overall, it was an ode to the era of Clintonian “small bore” initiatives. I suppose that’s for the best.
A full transcript of the speech is here.
10:05 ? 52 minutes. And a stirring wrapup. Except that Bush really doesn’t do “stirring” all that well. Oh well.
9:57 ? Human-animal hybrids? Huh?
9:55 ? “We must never give in to the belief that America is on the decline.” How Carter-esque.
9:54 ? Fewer abortions than anytime in the past three decades? Is that true? [UPDATE: Apparently it is. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the abortion rate has declined every year since its peak in 1990.]
9:51 ? The increase in basic research funding sounds good. I wonder if it’s for real? The investment tax credit stuff will be popular in Silicon Valley.
9:49 ? The R&D stuff he’s talking about for clean energy research doesn’t really sound like much. I wonder what those percentage increases come to in actual dollars?
9:47 ? HSA watch: Bush wants to make them available to small businesses and make them more portable. Is that it? That’s not much for all the HSA hype we’ve been hearing for the past couple of weeks.
9:44 ? Now a reference to Clinton. That makes the score 4-1 in favor of references to former Democratic presidents. Aren’t there any former Republican presidents he wants to give a shout out to?
9:41 ? Still with the business about cutting the deficit in half by 2009? Sheesh. I think Kash took care of that one a couple of days ago.
9:39 ? “Roosevelt to Truman to Kennedy to Reagan”? What happened to Ike and Nixon and Ford and Dad? Is Bush embarrassed of his own party?
9:37 ? By the way, Matt lost ten bucks a few minutes ago….
9:34 ? Yep, he’s on the offensive about the NSA’s domestic spying program ? complete with lies about previous presidents doing the same thing and federal courts having approved it. Points for chutzpah, though.
9:32 ? Who are these “isolationists” Bush keeps talking about?
9:23 ? In Iraq, “we’ve changed our approach to reconstruction.” Didn’t we just cut the budget for reconstruction to zero? That’s more than just a “change,” isn’t it?
9:17 ? Hmmm, the Palestinians were left out of Bush’s list of emerging democracies in the Middle East. Isn’t that odd?
9:00 ? Wolf Blitzer on Dick Cheney and Dennis Hastert: “They look mighty good there together, don’t they?” Give me a break.
8:59 ? Cindy Sheehan tried to unfold a banner and got arrested by Capitol Police? Sheesh.
8:56 ? Let’s see, George Bush has already adopted John Kerry’s Iran policy, and tonight he will apparently adopt Jimmy Carter’s energy policy as well. “America is addicted to oil,” we are reliably informed he will tell us. Let’s keep a sharp eye out for FDR references too, shall we?
