State of the Union: Zzzzzz

"Every White House loves the annual State of the Union speech because it supposedly showcases the president for a full primetime hour in all his imperial glory. But this is the first State of the Union I can remember where the president ended the evening diminished in stature rather than enhanced.

"First, we witnessed the death of the great-man theory of Bush. The Bush presidency, in the minds of its most fervent supporters, has been built on the idea that Bush is a visionary with bold ideas that he forcefully pushes even when they sacrifice his own popularity. But the bold agenda is gone. His 'addicted to oil' line will garner lots of headlines, but his actual oil-independence plan is so modest--tens of millions of dollars in a two trillion dollar annual budget--that it is barely worth mentioning. Instead of re-arguing the case for his Social Security plan, he called for another Social Security commission. The much-hyped health care proposals were mentioned in passing. His fancy American Competitiveness Initiative--a research and development tax credit and more money for math and science--seems reasonable but forgettable.

"Second, there was very little in the speech for conservatives to rally around. No bold new tax cuts. No line-in-the-sand warning to Iran. No culture war rhetoric. Combined with the Dick Morris-style domestic initiatives and the incessant appeals for bipartisanship, Bush came before Congress a seemingly humbled, even emasculated, president."

Emasculated? Them's fightin' words to a Texan!

Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum found a bunch of omissions:

"The international part of the speech was mushier, more platitudinous than usual. In fact, what's interesting is that I think that entire section of the address could have been given by a President Kerry with no more than a few sentences changed.

"The domestic stuff was just a laundry list. And what happened to healthcare? That was supposed to be a big focus of the speech, but he barely mentioned it. Nothing about tax reform, either. If he's serious about the clean energy stuff and the basic physical research, that's good news, but I'll bet he isn't. I'll wait to see the actual numbers on all that stuff. And the plea from Karl Rove's boss for bipartisan comity was either laughable or revolting, depending on your temperament. But it might play well in Peoria.

"Overall, it was an ode to the era of Clintonian 'small bore' initiatives. I suppose that's for the best."

National Review's bloggers were mixed, but radio host Michael Graham called it "a speech that only Bill Clinton could love. Short on grandeur and long on government action? Or should I say the appearance of government action. Wind farms? Ethanol? Competitiveness commissions? I was half expecting to hear about midnight basketball and school uniforms, too."

Not much dissension for me to stir up. Ah, here's a different viewpoint, from Arianna :

"All my worst fears about the Democratic response to the State of the Union address being given by Virginia Gov Kaine were realized tonight when he completely failed to take on the president on his greatest vulnerability -- the war in Iraq. 'Second guessing is not a strategy,' Bush said -- but Kaine didn't even bother to second-guess.

"Instead, he told us 'together, we can do better' (I swear he did!) and that 'our greatest need is to heal our partisan wounds.' Now if I can only figure out how to heal these fresh wounds on my wrists, we'll be fine. At least, together we'll be fine.