Wednesday, February 01, 2006

The State of the Union, 2006

No, I didn't watch it. Other responsibilities called me elsewhere, and to tell the truth, I wasn't that interested.

Reading the analysis & commentaries, it appears that the speech hit the right notes on foreign policy, hit some questionable ones on domestic policy, and was big on thoughts but not on plans. Regarding Iran, the President took the right tone, but did not discuss what to do. Regarding the wiretapping controversy, it sounds like he took a hard stand, with which I agree - Congress has known about it all along. (The Democrat leadership just suffered from selective amnesia when that story broke last December.) But the President announced some initiatives on the domestic front (competitiveness, education, and energy) which are bit weird sounding. I want to hear details. And he didn't score any points on Social Security reform.


As far as his energy proposals go - probably the only thing I am even remotely able to comment on - I'm going to read up on it more before I start talking about it, and maybe do a post on it later.

And, it sounds like the Democrats made fools of themselves during the speech, as did Cindy Sheehan. (No surprise on either score, really.)

But some people did watch, and their commentary can be found here and here.

Some highlights:

From
National Review:
"Even at his most conciliatory, Bush continues to annoy all the right people."

From the Corner (on the Democratic response given by Gov. Kaine of Virginia):
HALF THE READING AUDIENCE WILL GET THIS ONE [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
From a reader, on Kaine's eyebrow: "does The Rock know that Kaine stole his trademark facial expression?"

From QandO.net (Warning - Foul Language):
"'The state of the union is strong.' No president ever starts a SOTU with, 'Dudes, we're f***ed.' Well, except Jimmy Carter."

2 Comments:

At 10:09 AM, Blogger Scott Hinrichs said...

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal asked why all the energy independence talk if we're going to make the Middle East a free enterprize zone. Heck, we should eventually be rolling in cheap oil.

 
At 4:03 PM, Blogger Tyler said...

The key word there is "eventually."

Plus, I'm curmudgeonly enough to revel in the idea of the mullahs stuck with a bunch of worthless carbon goo under the ground.

Granted, that won't happen. But a more diverse supply of energy will reduce the impact of artifical factors on the price of oil - such as international tensions.

 

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