- BEST SOUNDBITE
“Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.” Translation: it’s war.
- MISSING IN ACTION
Any mention of the $300 billion budget deficit, beyond adding it to the list (along with baldness and halitosis) of things the president believes can be cured by cutting taxes.
- THE ROAD TO BAGHDAD LEADS THROUGH NAMIBIA
Last fall, Sen. Bill Frist thought we needed to give the Global Fund to Fight AIDS $400 million to combat the disease in Africa, but the White House cut it to $200 million. Now the president proposes to spend $15 billion (with a “b”) on AIDS in Africa over five years. This is welcome news; with 30 million people carrying the AIDS virus, it’s arguably the most pressing problem in the world today. But focusing on AIDS was a tactical ploy: Bush wants to show the world that he’s more than just a trigger-happy cowboy. He’s a compassionate trigger-happy cowboy.
- THE ROAD TO BAGHDAD IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS
The $450 million mentoring program and $600 million drug-treatment initiative–while heartfelt (Bush has some background as a mentor himself, and his niece has been arrested on drug charges)–are less expensive examples of the same tactic. It’s only meaningful if he actually fights for money for these programs in the budget process. If the fate of similar programs is any indication, he won’t.
- AUSTIN BUSH, INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY
“All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. And many others have met a different fate. Put it this way–they are no longer a problem for the United States and our friends and allies.”
The president hasn’t mentioned Osama bin Laden since last July, but it feels good knowing at least some of his buddies got privately whacked. Maybe a few of them also experienced electric shock, mutilation with electric drills and had their tongues cut out.
- YOU MIGHT WANT TO READ CLAUSE 17(G)
Bush committed himself to “strengthening Medicare” and he proposed a prescription-drug benefit, which is always a crowd pleaser. But nowhere in the speech did he mention that under his new proposal, to receive the prescription-drug benefit, seniors would often have to leave their Medicare doctors and place themselves at the tender mercies of HMOs.
- RUBIK’S TUBE
Bush said that intelligence sources say Saddam attempted to “purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear-weapons production.” But the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), quoted favorably by the president elsewhere, reports that the tubes are for rockets, not nuclear production, and that there is no evidence of Saddam trying to buy uranium. British intelligence says that’s rubbish. On Feb. 5, Colin Powell better straighten it out.
- WILL THE HYDROGEN STATION BATHROOMS BE CLEAN?
In a couple of decades, the best-remembered line of the speech might be: “The first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free.”
The $1.2 billion subsidy for developing hydrogen cars isn’t much compared to other government funding of technologies, but it’s a start.
Just as long as they’ve got four-wheel drive.
- SPARE US
“We seek peace. We strive for peace.”
- TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES
The president was right about one thing: We do live in “a time of great consequence.” Whether this State of the Union Message will itself be of any lasting consequence has nothing to do with how well-written and delivered it was. It has everything to do with events on the ground in Iraq. If the war goes well, we’ll be glad Bush talked us into it; if it goes badly and we’re bled dry for years, we’ll complain that he warned us of the dangers of inaction but never spelled out the risks of upheaval–that he skimped on the true consequences.
