State of the Union speech.
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| Tue, 01-20-2004 - 8:48am |
In his State of the Union speech to Congress on Tuesday evening, President Bush will in effect launch his campaign to be re-elected.
He will try to present the strengths of his administration but he will also have to address its weaknesses.
Mr Bush does not yet know which Democrat he will face. Iowa is only the start of the campaign. So he has to adopt a broad strategy.
His strengths lie in foreign fields - in the "war on terror" which he himself declared and in the assertion of the "Bush doctrine" of pre-emptive intervention.
One of his major themes this year will be that America is safer with him at the helm.
New focus
But the tone in this speech may be moderated. He is mindful that he may need to sound more flexible in how his policy is applied.
Take Iraq. It has not gone as well as he had hoped so he might emphasise the chance that Iraq now has to develop democracy rather than dwell on the removal of a doubtful threat from weapons of mass destruction.
According to The New York Times, he will single out Libya as an example of how pressure on a rogue state can force it to change course without war.
Libya has agreed to give up work on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and to allow full inspections.
By emphasising that Libya has been brought to negotiation not to war, Mr Bush will reach out to those Americans (and his critics around the world) who worry that his policies are too aggressive.
The phrase "axis of evil" first used in this speech two years ago (but dropped last year) is not expected to make a come-back.
Foreign policy, however, is the lesser of his worries.
Domestic vulnerability
A poll published by the Washington Post and ABC News has revealed that it is domestic policy which is his weakness, even though overall support for him is put at 58%.
He is ahead of the Democrats by 2 to1 over policies connected to national security, but he is running statistically even with them on other issues.
He has tried to remedy this in recent weeks and months, promoting, for example, policies to give prescription drugs for the elderly and legalising the presence of illegal immigrants.
The immigration initiative appeals to the Latino vote while not upsetting Middle America too much. The country has always coped with and has indeed been built on waves of immigrants who provide much needed labour.
So the speech will have to dwell in substantial part on the economic and social state of the union.
The rapid growth of the US economy (and the role in this he will claim for his tax cuts) will no doubt feature strongly.
But always at Mr Bush's back is the memory of what happened to his father.
He, too, won a war against Iraq but lost office after neglecting the economy.



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Pre-Buttal to State of the Union Address.
By House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle.
Renee
His "don't make me do it" stance on a marriage amendment is a transparent campaign ploy. He's back to talking about privitizing social security, which everyone knows he doesn't have the money to do. And whose idea was it to talk more about steroid use in pro-sports than about the environment? Are we more worried about Sammy Sosa's health than the health of our children?
I think he should fire his speechwriting staff. First, because they actually managed to bury the capture of Saddam Hussein amid a pile of trite talking points. And second, for writing this sentence - "Key provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire next year" which resulted in the Democratic side of the chamber erupting in applause, while I laughed with glee.
What was the message to America? That a George W. Bush without a fight on his hands is adrift. We're back to candidate Bush, and I think that's good for people who think it's time for a new President.
I have to go back and read the text of his speech...my painkillers were kicking in and I found the whole thing hysterically 'funny'.
"pre-buttal" isn't hypocracy and partisanship, what is?
Those twitches that Keenedy was experiencing were withdrawl twitches.....apparently he had not had a drink in 15 minutes.
Of course there was going to be some jabs at his political opponents, which the speech did incorporate, but there was no swing for the fences in this speech as you would normally expect during the state of the union, especially in an election year.
I think that the speech was good, but could have been a little better.
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