SOTU or STFU

So much for his legacy. In a speech that should have set the course for bold new programs for his final year in office, President Bush came up with a rehash of recycled and failed policies.

There was nothing new.

There was nothing bold.

It was just the same old shit.

Stay the course in Iraq. We are winning. After five years of fighting Al-Qaeda is on the run. That’s what Lyndon Johnson told us about Vietnam in 1967. And the cities outside of Baghdad are still not secured and the death toll continues to mount.

Don’t mess with my recession relief package. Same old bull headed, let’s not talk about bipartisan compromise; it’s my way or the highway attitude we’ve seen for the last seven years.

Take out the pork. He’s going to veto spending bills that do not drop fifty percent of the earmarked funding they contain. Wonder which party gets to keep their funds in place.

Host the annual meeting with the leaders of Canada and Mexico in New Orleans to show off the recovery efforts. I wonder if he’ll take them to the ninth ward. I wonder if the leaders can keep from laughing at the joke.

Provide technological support to developing countries to slow down their emissions of greenhouse gases. Where are the programs for cutting greenhouse gases in the country that is the largest contributor to the problem?

He has no new ideas on solving the health care, social security problem. He will let congress come up solutions that he can veto.

So that’s it. There were of course other wishes. None made with any real commitment or belief that they will come to pass. It’s like the man has given up. He’s decided that it will be okay to leave office as the most unpopular and ineffective president in history. So much so that he is leaving Washington for a barnstorming tour to raise money for other Republican candidates. There are deluded Republicans out there that still support him and all that he stands for.

The most interesting part of the whole State of the Union event was the response of Republicans to Kathleen Sebellius’ Democratic response to the speech. The governor took the high ground calling an end to the “politics of exhaustion” and noting the recession relief package as an example encouraging bi-partisan efforts to solve the nation’s problems.

Typical of their attack mentality, Republicans ignored what the governor had to say and made personal attacks against her. As is usual, they accused her of being nothing less than being a lying, cheating tax and spend liberal who has taken her state into the depths of depravity. They even decried her recent photograph in Vogue as proof of her two faced nature. Interesting that the two Republicans not toeing the party line were the two senators from Kansas who ignored the mud and had only nice things to say about the content of the speech.

So we are off to a good start. We continue to have a President who gives every indication that as usual he is not interested in compromise and a Republican party more interested in spreading dirt than in solving the critical issues that face the country. It’s going to be another do nothing year.