The speech is starting. Here goes some live-blogging!
Apparently Kucinich got a hug in. Hilarious.
Graceful shout-out to “Madame Speaker.”
“Democrat” majority. What a jerk.
“Spend money wisely.” Har.
Now, six years in, with a Dem majority in Congress, suddenly the dude cares about bipartisanship. Mm hm.
(Wages aren’t actually rising for working people, George.)
Now, with a Dem Congress, he wants to balance the budget. Mm-hm. But still without raising taxes. Mm-hm.Spending discipline! The gall.
“Restrain the spending appetite of the federal government.” Does military spending count?
Earmarks are a total red herring — they’re a tiny sliver of the budget. You want to cut fed spending, cut the defense budget or entitlements, George. Which is it?
Here we go: lump “entitlements” together, in order to cast Social Security as in need of “saving.” An oldie but a goodie.
ThinkProgress is live-blogging with actual facts and research and stuff.
As usual, the very sound of Bush’s voice makes me disoriented. Where am I? What is he saying?
Education: addressing the cliche deficit.
Here comes the healthcare nonsense. For more on this, see Ezra’s post from earlier today.
Why does Bush always sound like he’s explaining basic math to a developmentally challenged child? Is it because that’s how he heard it?
“Unjust lawsuits” — classic red herring. Far-right red meat.
Ooh … temporary worker program. The R’s don’t like that one bit. Neither to the Dems, really. Do we really want a permanent set of second-class citizens?
“Without amnesty” — there’s a little red meat.
Ah, here we go with energy.
“Dependent on foreign oil.” Standard. Energy security stuff. Standard. “Technology.” Standard.
“Clean coal, solar and wind, and ‘safe, clean’ nuclear power.”
Ooh, batteries! Glad they got a shout-out.
Here comes ethanol. Cellulosic! Cellulosic! “Strong response of the market?”
Reduce gas by 20% in the next 10 years. Who thought this was a good soundbite? It’s just meaningless. Who can put it into perspective?
35 billion gallons of alt fuels by 2015.
CAFE standards — see here.
“The serious challenge of global climate change“! There it is. Extended applause. “Yay, Georgie gets it!”
Now it’s quickly on to federal judges. “Please let me continue to pack the court with ideologues. It’s your duty.”
Got all the way up to here before a 9/11 reference? Not bad.
We must “take the fight to the enemy” in the war on terror. And if we can’t find any enemies there, we’ll create some!
Here’s all the terrorist attacks we prevented. Trust me.
There’s still evil out there, and so we’re still at war. We’ll be at war until evil is gone. In other words, we’ll always be at war. We are now a nation for which “being at war” is a permanent state of affairs. That sounds sustainable.
Wow, he didn’t have nearly this many bad things to say about climate change.
Iran’s the enemy. Hezbollah’s the enemy. Shia and Sunnis? Both enemies. Enemies are everywhere! Thus, give me permanent police and surveillance powers without oversight. Authoritarianism 101.
How is the “security of our nation” in the balance? How? It’s never explained.
People deserve a fair chance at democracy. So let’s invade and impose it on them!
Iraq had elections! Remember those? Good times.
Lumping together all brown enemies into one undifferentiated mass of “evil.” Evil and Iran. It’s Iran’s fault!
We have to stay and “win” in Iraq. Victory, as usual, is unexplained. What is it? What counts as winning? Anyone?
Ah yes, our “new strategy” in Iraq. Our goal is a democratic, peaceful, rule-of-law respecting Iraq. And a pony.
Sending in more troops. What’s that old definition of insanity again?
The moral monstrosity of placing responsibility for this state of affairs on the Iraq government truly defies understanding.
By “consequences of failure,” you understand he’s talking about his own “legacy.”
All this bad stuff he’s describing? The consequences of failing in Iraq. They are inevitable. He made them inevitable. His successor will have to deal with them.
“We went into this united.” I.e., “don’t forget you voted for that resolution, you suckers.”
“Support me our troops, dammit!”
A “generational struggle” — why didn’t he say that about climate change?
This “advisory council” is something Pelosi and Reid already rejected. There’s already a council. It’s called Congress.
Military grows. Finds new things to do. Needs more troops. Grows more. Repeat.
“Reserve corps” — a privatized Army! What could go wrong?
We’re rallying the world to join us? Seriously? This is a straight-face test.
Ah, there’s the swagger — ultimatums to Middle Eastern countries really jazz him up.
Standard two-state stuff re: Palestine. How about some action?
“Intensive diplomacy” on North Korea — only we’ve failed at it.
How dare you mention Darfur, you toad.
Hunger, poverty, and disease abroad. Yet our per-capita international aid is the lowest in the developed world.
The AIDS dance — big talk, as always, but where’s the actual funding?
But OK, Bush is decent on the Africa stuff.
And … here we segue into sappy human-interest stories.
America rulez.
Mercifully short this year. Stay tuned for the Dem response.
