Here are my notes on the President’s SotU speech, with timestamps (slightly delayed by Stevo)!
6:13: Bush starts off acknowledging the historic occasion of the first woman to be Speaker of the House. Jodi comments that he “would have been a real ass” not to do it.
6:18: “Unemployment is low, inflation is low,” . . . expectations are low?
6:19: economic reforms
BALANCE BUDGET (I wonder if that still means supplemental budget requests outside the normal budget process)
(I wonder if “spending appetite” of the federal govt. includes science and education?)
EARMARK REFORM: end this practice (uh oh – this is a cherished Congressional prerogative. Well, looks like a standing ovation from both sides, so maybe they’re willing to part with it . . . or some of it)
“ENTITLEMENTS”: social security, medicare, and medicaid.
6:23: Reauthorize “No Child Left Behind” – he emphasized needed math and science skills.
6:24: Usual tax reform stuff
6:31: There’s that phrase again . . . “clean coal technology”. What *does* that mean, anyway? As far as I know, the mercury and CO2 output of coal plants, “clean” or no, is pretty unacceptable.
6:32: Wow, asking for a sacrifice. Reduce gas usage in the U.S. by 20% in the next 10 years. About time. And actual fuel standard requests for 2017 for alternative sources. There’s an about-face. Wow . . . and raise car and truck mileage standards. Who is this man, and what has he done with the President?
6:35: More about “stop filabustering my court nominations”
6:38: I wonder what the evidence for those “stopped terror plots” is? I wonder if it’s as sound as the Padilla evidence? Or the evidence against those kids in Florida who were alleged to have plans to attack buildings in Chicago, but who had zero money or equipment to do it?
6:40: Iran. Hmmm. Wonder where this is going?
6:42: “Free people are not drawn to malignant ideologies”? Where did that come from? I remember learning that “Democracies don’t go to war”, which is a principal now believed to be erroneous. Don’t recall that other one. I also might remind the President that Christianity was exported at the end of a pike throughout Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. That’s a religion upon which he, and hundreds of millions of others, build their lives (including me). Let’s not forget that it was through terror, and the promise of redemption, that religions have been spread throughout the ages. Who defines “malignant ideologies”? Let’s also not forget that “free people” are also free to choose to give themselves over to a cause, to which they may becomes slaves.
6:45: Lots of defense of the troop surge; a reassurance that “victory” has not been redefined.
6:52: Special advisory committee for the war on terror — about time.
6:53: Volunteer civilian reserve corps. More sacrifice being asked, but wrapped in volunteerism. No war gardens, I guess.
7:04: That’s all folks.
No call on Congress to fund the ACI. Is the President’s own plan going to die a gruesome death in FY08?
