President Bush dedicated 161 words of his hour-long State of the Union address to discussion of the Gulf Coast. For comparison purposes, a Maroon column is 510 words long.
Buoyed by the day’s confirmation of Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito, the president spent most of the 51-minute long speech addressing threats posed by terrorists and his rationale for maintaining current troop levels in Iraq.
“In a time of testing, we cannot find security by abandoning our commitments and retreating within our borders … and there is no honor in retreat,” Bush said.
“As we make progress on the ground, and Iraqi forces increasingly take the lead, we should be able to further decrease our troop levels – but those decisions will be made by our military commanders, not by politicians in Washington, D.C.,” he said to thunderous applause from Republicans in attendance.
Bush made no new promises to areas affected by Hurricane Katrina – he mentioned the $85 billion appropriated, but didn’t discuss any upcoming initiatives. He also chastised the Gulf Coast for its racial inequalities, noting that “many of our fellow citizens have felt excluded from the promise of our country … let us also work for the day when all Americans are protected by justice, equal in hope, and rich in opportunity.”
With his approval rating hovering around 39 percent – nearly 20 points less than his predecessors at the same point in their presidencies – Bush spent much of his talk reassuring the public. Recent polls reflect an overwhelming negativity about America’s prospects for the future – in a Jan. 15 poll by CNN/Gallup/USA Today, only 33 percent of respondents said that they thought the country was “going in the right direction.”
Bush also used the opportunity to roll out several new initiatives, including one that will fund development of coal-burning power plants and another that will increase funding for science and math education, which he hopes will encourage youth to pursue engineering and technical jobs.
He chided critics of the war, saying there “is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success, and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure … second-guessing is not a strategy.”
He urged Congress to make his tax cuts permanent and renew the Patriot Act, which prompted a standing ovation from Republicans and one Democrat, who received several dirty looks from his colleagues.
Although there were dozens of standing ovations on the right side of the aisle, the Democrats had their own moment of cheer – when Bush noted that Congress had not acted on his Social Security initiatives.
Delivering the Democrats’ response to the speech, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine criticized Bush’s partisanship and what he called “financial irresponsibility,” asking, “Why should we allow this administration to pass down the bill for its reckless spending to our children and grandchildren?”
The annual State of the Union address, delivered to the Senate, House of Representatives, Supreme Court and Cabinet members as well as selected citizens, has a history dating back to George Washington, although many have been read aloud by a clerk of court rather than the president himself.
