A rebuttal to King George's annual address from a couple of AP writers (found here). Determine whether or not your local newspaper has any balls by how much (if any) of this that they print:



By CALVIN WOODWARD and HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON - President Bush set energy self-sufficiency goals Tuesday night that would still leave the country vulnerable to unstable oil sources. He also declared he is helping more people get health care, despite a rising number of uninsured.

Whether promoting a plan to "save Social Security" or describing Iraqi security forces as "increasingly capable of defeating the enemy," Bush skipped over some complex realities in his State of the Union speech.

ENERGY:

By identifying only Mideast oil imports for reductions, Bush was ignoring some of the largest sources of U.S. petroleum, among them Canada, Mexico, Nigeria and Venezuela. The U.S. considers Venezuela a source of political instability in the region; relations with Mexico have been strained over immigration; and violence has curbed nearly 10 percent of Nigeria's oil output.

Imports of oil and refined product from the Persian Gulf make up less than a fifth of all imports, according to the government.

Bush has spoken of reducing reliance on foreign oil in every State of the Union speech, if not as explicitly as in this one, and presidents back to Richard Nixon outlined similar goals, to little or no effect.

Nixon announced Project Independence in 1973, setting a goal of energy self-sufficiency in seven years. Then, the U.S. imported 35 percent of its oil; now it's close to 60 percent. This, despite substantive steps taken by Nixon and Jimmy Carter to spur both supply and conservation, including construction of the Alaskan oil pipeline and reduction in the highway speed limit to 55 mph for many years.

HEALTH CARE:

Noting that the government must help provide health care for the poor and elderly, Bush asserted, "We are meeting that responsibility."

It is true that a new prescription drug benefit took effect this year, a new entitlement for up to 42 million disabled and older people. But implementation has been rocky: Mark McClellan, the administration's top Medicare official, recently acknowledged that tens of thousands of recipients probably didn't get medicine due to confusion and computer glitches, prompting some lawmakers to seek an extension of the May 15 signup deadline to work out the snafus.

An incomplete picture also emerges on health care for the poor.

The number of uninsured has increased nearly 5 million since Bush took office in 2001, to 45.5 million in 2004, two-thirds of the total from low-income families, according to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

And while total federal spending on the health care "safety net" for the uninsured edged up from 2001 to 2004 — adjusted for inflation, slightly more than 1 percent — spending actually decreased from $546 to $498 per uninsured person due to the jump in uninsured, the Kaiser group said.

Bush actually is expected to propose curbing the growth of benefit programs such as Medicare and Medicaid in his 2007 budget request next week.

SOCIAL SECURITY:

Bush said Congress did not act last year on his "proposal to save Social Security." In fact, his plan does not take care of Social Security's future solvency; instead, he wants to let younger workers divert some of their Social Security payroll taxes into private investment accounts to take advantage of the possibilities for a better return.

IRAQ:

Bush's upbeat account of progress in Iraq, coupled with an acknowledgment that "our enemy is brutal," left unstated a variety of setbacks in turning control over to Iraqi forces, including Iraqi Army desertions in the volatile west.

KATRINA:

Addressing Hurricane Katrina aid, Bush said a hopeful society "comes to the aid of fellow citizens in times of suffering and emergency" and the government is meeting New Orleans' "immediate needs."

Federal money is indeed being used to build stronger levees and provide business loans and housing assistance. But the government has declined to rebuild levees strong enough to sustain a Category 5 hurricane, and it recently rejected as unnecessary a $30 billion redevelopment plan for Louisiana that state officials considered the cornerstone of their hopes for rebuilding.

HOMELAND SECURITY:

Bush urged Americans to back his secretive domestic spy program, saying he was using his "authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute" and noting that "appropriate members of Congress have been kept informed."

Bush did not address the counterarguments that he failed to heed a separate 1978 law that specifically calls for court approval to conduct the surveillance. Some lawmakers have also questioned why Bush did not brief more than eight members of Congress about the program, which has been in effect since 2001.

EDUCATION:

On the theme of improving math and science education, Bush boasted, "We have made a good start in the early grades with the No Child Left Behind Act, which is raising standards and lifting test scores across our country."

In 2005, fourth-graders and eighth-graders posted their highest-ever math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and black and Hispanic children narrowed their achievement gap with whites in both math and reading. But the fourth-grade reading performance was essentially flat, and in eighth grade, reading scores dropped.

SPENDING:

The president said that "every year of my presidency, we have reduced the growth of non-security discretionary spending." That doesn't tell the full story because the category he cited omits big-ticket spending items like Iraq, natural disasters such as Katrina and homeland security.

He spoke of saving taxpayers $14 billion next year if his budget proposals are adopted, not mentioning some of those savings would come from health care programs such as Medicaid.

You got to hand it to Bush Jr, he just doesn't give a fuck about what anybody thinks - he just stays the course with his "stay the course" policy.

Pat Buchanan weighing in with his rebuttal.
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=12168

"The road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting, yet it ends in danger and decline," railed President Bush in his State of the Union. Again and again, Bush returned to his theme.

"America rejects the false comfort of isolationism. ...

"Isolationism would not only tie our hands in fighting enemies, it would keep us from helping our friends in desperate need. ...

"American leaders from Roosevelt to Truman to Kennedy to Reagan rejected isolation and retreat."

Why would a president use his State of the Union to lash out at a school of foreign policy thought that has had zero influence in his administration? The answer is a simple one, but it is not an easy one for Bush to face: His foreign policy is visibly failing, and his critics have been proven right.

But rather than defend the fruits of his policy, Bush has chosen to caricature critics who warned him against interventionism. Like all politicians in trouble, Bush knows that the best defense is a good offense.

Having plunged us into an unnecessary war, Bush now confronts the real possibility of strategic defeat and a failed presidency. His victory in Iraq, like the wars of Wilson and FDR, has turned to ashes in our mouths. And like Truman's war in Korea and Kennedy's war in Vietnam, Bush's war has left America divided and her people regretting he ever led us in. But unlike the world wars, Korea and Vietnam, Bush cannot claim the enemy attacked us and we had no choice. Iraq is Bush's war. Isolationists had nothing to do with it. To a man and woman, they opposed it.

Now, with an army bogged down in Afghanistan and another slowly exiting Iraq, and no end in sight to either, Bush seeks to counter critics who warned him not to go in by associating them with the demonized and supposedly discredited patriots of the America First movement of 1940-41. His assault is not only non-credible, it borders on the desperate and pathetic.

"Abroad, our nation is committed to a historic long-term goal. We seek the end of tyranny in our world," said Bush. "Some dismiss that goal as misguided idealism. In reality, the future security of America depends upon it."

Intending no disrespect, this is noble-sounding nonsense. Our security rests on U.S. power and will, and not on whether Zimbabwe, Sudan, Syria, Cuba or even China is ruled by tyrants. Our forefathers lived secure in a world of tyrannies by staying out of wars that were none of America's business. As for "the end of tyranny in our world," Mr. President, sorry, that doesn't come in "our world." That comes in the next.

"By allowing radical Islam to work its will, by leaving an assaulted world to fend for itself, we would signal to all that we no longer believe in our own ideals or even in our own courage," said Bush.

But what has done more to radicalize Islam than our invasion of Iraq? Who has done more to empower Islamic radicals than Bush with his clamor for elections across a region radicalized by our own policies? It is one thing to believe in ideals, another to be the prisoner of some democratist ideology.

Bush has come to believe that the absence of democracy is the cause of terror and democracy its cure. But the cause of terror in the Middle East is the perception there that those nations are held in colonial captivity by Americans and their puppet regimes, and that the only way to expel both is to use tactics that have succeeded from Algeria in 1962 to Anbar province in 2005.

Given the franchise, Arab and Islamic peoples from Pakistan to Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank and Egypt have now voted for candidates with two credentials. They seemed to be devout Muslims, and they appeared dedicated to tossing America out of the region and the Israelis into the sea.

With opposition also rising to his free-trade policy, Bush reverted to the same tactic: Caricature and castigate critics of his own failed policies. "Protectionists," said Bush, pretend "we can keep our high standards of living, while walling off our economy."

But it was protectionists from Lincoln to Coolidge who gave us the highest standard of living on earth. And the record of Bush's merry band of free-traders? The largest trade deficits in history, a $200 billion trade surplus for Beijing at our expense in 2005, and 3 million lost manufacturing jobs since Bush first took the oath.

If America is angry over what interventionism and free trade have wrought, George Bush cannot credibly blame isolationists or protectionists. These fellows have an alibi. They were nowhere near the scene of the crime.

It is George W. Bush who is running out of alibis.

Because of the Democrats non-rebuttal, thought I would go ahead and post Buchanan's. The article came a keen podcast and banner ad.

"Download an iPod-ready MP3 file of this column read by Pat Buchanan"

Pretty incredible that that comes from Buchanan, but oldstyle conservatives have been sort of pissed with Bush for a while. The real joke here is that it was isolationism and protectionism that got Bush into office in the first place.

Republicans would probably control American politics exclusively and indefinitely if not for their tendency to treat everyone else like they're too stupid to see what's going on. Tom DeLay is still acting like he's going to be cleared and then summarily re-elected.

Not that I'd endorse either side of our one-party system these days, but Delay could still be okay politically, even with a conviction. Marion Berry got caught smoking crack with a hooker on videotape for christs sakes, and he got re-elected.

And as far as Bush 'staying the course' and not giving a fuck what anyone else thinks, I don't find that admirable. Not in what is supposed to be a democratically represented Republic. It's short sighted. The entire process of the Executive branch jockeying for more power and rewriting Constitutional law will have an effect on the future. And depending on who gets elected down the road, those who applaud it now may be regretting
it later.

But wtf do I know.

People tend to be more forgiving of what they see as personal flaws rather than abuses of the office. It's why Clinton is still so well-loved. DeLay, OTOH, has made such a mockery of the whole process that once he's convicted, his former pals in the GOP will do everything they can to keep him down. Just look at the way Newt Gingrich was dumped as a figurehead -- and he didn't even break the law.



I don't think DP was trying to give the impression that he does either.

The idea that Georgie is actually showing some sort of personal integrity by ignoring what 'the liberals on the left coast' think is actually popular out here in hicksville, so my appoligies for apparently assuming.