Lunchtime Thoughts on Last Night's State of the Union Message
Since I never actually learned to type and don't own a laptop, for me to simulblog President Bush's State of the Union last night would have been a joke. I'd have been scurrying from the family room to where my desktop sets and challenged my four typing fingers beyond their capacity. But now a few thoughts on last night's SOTU:
The one major disappointment I personally had with the speech came when he enumerated nations in need of democracy and the President failed to mention China. Over the long haul, I believe that the Chinese government represents the single greatest threat to peace and to the interests of the US in the world. This is rooted in that government's repressiveness, hegemonic designs, and economic development. We need to deal with those realities.
Having said that, whatever one's politics, I think that you have to count the President's speech a very good one. Bush is not a naturally gifted orator. But when he needs to hit one out of the park, he can do it. He did that again last night.
He presented an unapologetic defense of both the War on Terrorism and the War in Iraq, including his domestic eavesdropping program. He was most effective in addressing this cluster of issues.
Domestically, the speech was an interesting grab bag of proposals.
With its combination of Wilsonian foreign policy and grand domestic initiatives, the speech at times sounded like one that could have easily been delivered by Lyndon Johnson.
But it was laced with a few conservative thoughts, bound to placate the Republican base. For the traditional conservative crowd, the President called for fiscal restraint. For the social conservatives, there were statements about the use of human embryos. For many conservatives of varied stamp, the call for making the tax cuts permanent was also no doubt welcome.
His proposal to establish a bipartisan commission on Social Security was artful and made the sarcasm with which the Democrats greeted his acknowledgement of the failure to change the program last year look tawdry.
The biggest surprise of the speech to me though, was the fact that he didn't mention outgoing Fed chair Alan Greenspan. You would think that the President would have wanted to tap into the bipartisan good feelings about Greenspan's eighteen year tenure. I'm baffled by this omission.
Overall though, I think that the speech confirms a shift in the definition of conservatism that has been happening during this administration. Bush conservatism certainly has little in common with the Republicanism practiced and preached by such luminaries of the party as Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Barry Goldwater, or Ronald Reagan. (Or even the conservatism of his father.) The shift may be entirely warranted, but it's a decided, almost volcanic, one for sure.