State of the Union Address

[Artcwolf]

Anyone watching it? I am. Interesting.

Opinions?

I think Senator Kennedy is pissed. Hehe At least Senator Hillary Clinton looks a little more into it.

[Artcwolf]

President Bush was very confident during his address. I thought it was very good.

[egarrard]

I'm going to wait and see what that budget looks like. I kept hearing cut taxes, yet spend more money. When I cut revenue, I have to spend less money, not more. We'll see...

[getit29]

In a word NO I didn't get to see it :Nope

[Sky Rookie]

Originally posted by Artcwolf
President Bush was very confident during his address. I thought it was very good.

I voted for Bush, but at this time in history I'm not happy with my vote and he will not receive it again. I'm not happy with his performance and/or record.

<rant>
As a teacher in training, I think the "No Child Left Behind" act (NCLB) is a hindrance to our education system. This new act has done NOTHING for students. What it has done is disqualify some teachers. While I agree that teachers should be well educated, those that are teaching students currently and doing a good job should not be kicked out of the classroom simply because they don't have a piece of paper from an intuition that charges well over $50,000 for it. I think if these teachers can pass the same tests that i have to become certified they should be allowed to stay in their classrooms. That being said those that do have the education should be paid more, not only because of my situation, this is how it is in any industry or business. Allowing students to run to "better performing schools" is a joke, how are the underperforming school ever going to approve? Also the label of an underperforming school is a joke, they labels are assigned based on test scores. Personally, I stink at tests! However, having nearly finished my Math major I can demonstrate my math knowledge in a teaching environment just not on a piece of paper.
</end of rant>

His handling of budget issues stinks.
His handling of Iraq IMO is TOTALLY WRONG.



I'll stop now before I get myself in trouble... :banana

[WazLady73]

I started to watch it. Then turned it off to watch American Idol:eek: show that I had taped earlier.....

I will read experts of it later....

I hope they put more money into education....

[Tivon]

I don't know...

School drug testing?:Holy Crap

[mach250]

I didnt watch it but off hand I cant think of one good thing that bush has done while in the office... :What the :Roll Eyes

[eire1274]

Originally posted by mach250
I didnt watch it but off hand I cant think of one good thing that bush has done while in the office... :What the :Roll Eyes
He hasn't been ***** by any interns.:banana

[bejohnson]

Originally posted by mach250
I didnt watch it but off hand I cant think of one good thing that bush has done while in the office... :What the :Roll Eyes

He led the way for the removal of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban from power. He has led the way for tax reforms that are stimulating the economy.

That being said, the Republicans are spending money like drunken sailors. I have major reservations about his spending plans. I also have major reservations about the Democrats spending and tax plans.

[XxFaeryOnFirexX]

I didn't know there was one. :What the

[Airmack]

how can you not know some thing about your country like the state or the union? its law...

ya every station had it on.. the only station that did not show it was cartoon network and they showed pokemon.. But My. bush has a tivo.

[XxFaeryOnFirexX]

Originally posted by Airmack
how can you not know some thing about your country like the state or the union? its law...

ya every station had it on.. the only station that did not show it was cartoon network and they showed pokemon.. But My. bush has a tivo.

I was on teh computer. I only watch a few stations...

[egarrard]

Like any State of the Union speech, it is a list of proposals. What actually happens will depend on what Congress and the courts let him accomplish.

[Teddray]

Originally posted by eire1274
He hasn't been ***** by any interns.:banana

he isnt screwing any interns, hes just screwing the entire country instead =\

[Airmack]

dont turn this into that. keep it in the union address

[Maro]

A View form Engalnd by the Times US Correspondent:

PRESIDENT BUSH’s State of the Union speech marked the start of his campaign for re-election.

The White House said that the address on Tuesday night would not be “political”, but that could not have been less true. It was nakedly political, and delivered from a position of confidence.

Yet his many omissions simply highlighted his points of real vulnerability — and one of the greatest is the wariness even of Republicans of letting him spend any more.

He gave most prominence to his “War on Terror” — and with good reason. Two sets of respected polls just before the speech showed that Americans still rate him highly on the fight against terrorism, if slightly less so on Iraq. That, more than any domestic policy, underpins his popularity.

Loudest applause came, inevitably, when Bush, once more, excavated Saddam Hussein from his hole in the ground and installed him in an American jail (location not mentioned). He also made good use of Libya’s decision to come clean about its weapons programme and gave British diplomats credit for their part, the kind of compliment that goes a long way in Downing Street.

Who would have thought, even a year ago, that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi would be cited with favour in the State of the Union? We may yet see him a guest of honour in the balcony of Congress, as Adnan Pachachi, the current president of the Iraqi Governing Council, was this year.

But only a campaign speech could so baldly stick to the solid ground and pretend that the quagmire did not exist. Fine to claim that Libya had seen the light because of the demonstration that the US meant what it said — but Bush cannot yet offer a solution to the threats from North Korea or Iran. As he said smoothly, “different threats require different strategies” — but he did not tell us what they might be.

Fine to mention that Afghan children are now going to school — in Kabul, at least, if we are allowed a qualification — but there was no mention of the still-missing Osama bin Laden, or of the lawlessness gripping the south, or of the re-emergence of the Taleban.

In Iraq, Bush argued that “our forces are on the offensive, leading over 1,600 patrols a day”. Yet although he mentioned “the sorrow when one is lost”, he did not say that the number lost passed 500 this weekend, a point not lost on his Democratic rivals sparring for their party’s nomination.

He cited, with approval, the report by David Kay, the former United Nations weapons inspector, into Iraq’s capabilities, but did not quote its conclusion that no evidence had been found of weapons of mass destruction.

He also reiterated — perhaps rashly — his commitment to a transfer of power in Iraq in June. He did not mention the United Nations, which has been holding delicate talks this week with Paul Bremer, the US administrator, about helping to establish whether elections are possible. Bremer, and many in the State Department, see a UN role as perhaps the best way of trying to persuade Iraq’s Shia majority to wait a little longer. But you would not know it from the President’s speech. Bush’s gibe at “submitting to the objections of a few”, and his declaration that “America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country”, could have been scripted to scupper those talks.

Nor, as it happens, was there any mention of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. Bush’s team appears to reckon that it is out of his control, and so hazardous to mention.

This is hardly the stuff of panoramic ambition. It is not a war on the “axis of evil”, that phrase now indissolubly linked to the Bush Administration. This is a careful attempt to map a narrow path through a minefield — and a path toward the exit, at that.

If Bush was circumspect in his foreign policy, he was even more so at home. Here, he is on much weaker ground, according to polls. Even though Republicans control both houses of Congress, the fiscal conservatives among them loathe the overnight transformation of the Government’s surpluses into deficits. While Bush has pushed through his tax cuts, he has so far done little to curb spending, they have noted.

So Bush’s domestic agenda was largely a reiteration of old policies, including many that have been rejected by Congress. The proposals on tax breaks for health insurance were not new — and have been turned down once. So has his energy plan, which he mentioned only in the broadest terms. He also put on his list — which must be counted only a wishlist — more government help for religious groups that provide social services, and new legislation to limit medical malpractice suits, both themes on which Congress has looked coolly. Nor has Congress yet allowed states more control over pre-school education, another of the speech’s proposals.

What was new, then? A fairly popular tweaking of immigration rules to give short-term work permits to migrant labour. And a host of social policies, the kind that had Bush enthused over when he was Governor of Texas, such as trying to prevent teenagers from using drugs or having sex before marriage.

One remark — expressing explicit opposition to gay marriages — will be welcomed by conservative Republicans, and shows that Bush is aware of the usefulness of this issue this year to unsettle Democrats.

Mars? Settling the Moon by 2020? The most dramatic of Bush’s recent announcements featured nowhere in the speech, apparently annihilated by the sceptical assault from across the political spectrum since he made it.

Intransigent but nervous abroad; cautious and circumscribed at home. This was a confident opening to Bush’s re-election campaign. But the belligerence, the myopia and the long list of things that he did not say show that he is not secure on every flank.