State of the Union: Zzzzzz

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 2, 2006 11:21 AM

No one liked the speech.

Well, that's not fair. I'm sure there are millions of Americans who liked President Bush's address just fine.

The punditocracy didn't like the speech.

Well, plenty of commentators said it was perfectly adequate and well delivered. But nobody was terribly excited about it.

Most conservatives, who might be expected to provide a cheering section, say it didn't provide much meat, red or otherwise. The most frequent description may have been Clintonian, and that's not meant as a compliment.

I happen to think we in the media hype these annual events out of all proportion. If Bush was struggling politically before the SOTU, one speech wasn't going to turn that around.

Much of this, you will not be shocked to learn, is poll-driven. A president comes into the House chamber with a 39 percent approval rating, all the reporters say he's in deep trouble, and after the speech, they say he's still in trouble. Had Bush given his speech with a 59 percent approval rating, I guarantee you the coverage would have been more positive.

Of course, there's no getting around the fact that Bush gave a bold speech last year, while this time he was reduced to proposing a bipartisan commission on Social Security and making a bunch of other small-scale proposals. So in that sense, the 2005 Bush was a bigger speech. But then, almost everything the president proposed went nowhere. So maybe a smaller speech is the more realistic one.

The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes , who just wrote a book praising the president, prefers the private Bush:

"When he met with TV anchors over lunch at the White House yesterday, President Bush was feisty, blunt, salty, assertive, and brimming with self-confidence. He was passionate on the topic of national security, saying the first thought on his mind when he wakes up every morning is how to protect America from attack. And he was adamant about aggressively pursuing an agenda in his final three years in office. He said he wouldn't just mark time or 'play for a tie.'

"But when he delivered his State of the Union address last night, a slightly different Bush showed up. His assertion that 'we are winning' in Iraq was strong, but the remainder of the speech was mild and more moderate. And after winning serious tax cuts, a Medicare drug benefit, education reform, and a more conservative Supreme Court, his new agenda loomed small in comparison."

Something's up when the Weekly Standard agrees with the New Republic, in the person of Ryan Lizza :

"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.

"While Kaine was droning on, I closed my eyes and imagined Jack Murtha giving the response, someone with the authority to do much more than second guess -- to offer an alternative strategy on Iraq and the war on terror, as opposed to Kaine's program of 'service and competent management.' And I thought 'competence' had gone out of vogue with Michael Dukakis.

"As for the Kaine bromide, 'common sense solutions to common problems' -- who came up with that one? Fire them immediately. Please."

Seems nobody much liked the Democrats, either.

Even the New York Post's John Podhoretz concedes that "George W. Bush gave the least consequential major speech of his presidency -- and it was a brilliant political stroke.

"Substantively, the State of the Union message was pretty much a bust -- with an entitlements commission here, a Competitiveness Initiative there, here a commission, there an initiative, everywhere a commission and an initiative. Rhetorically, it wasn't all that memorable -- save for his line about America being addicted to oil, which was catchy but essentially pointless.

"But politically it had two virtues. First was the Hippocratic virtue: Nothing he proposed last night will do any harm to him. Whether Commission A or Initiative B is welcomed or rejected by Congress, it won't matter much.

"Its second virtue was that it allowed him to spend a good deal of time reassuring a nervous public that he was focused on the primary tasks at hand."

Ah, what a genius: He proposed nothing of consequence! Nothing to shoot at!

Slate's John Dickerson finds something that eluded most pundits:

"I'm already feeling a little tricked by the speech. Not because there wasn't much talk about the austere budget cuts that are coming in the next few days. I'm suspicious because of all the pre-speech talk about how the president would push for a new 'civil tone.' I assumed he would offer a more conciliatory one. Instead, Bush was harsher and more partisan than last year...

"He depicted those who oppose him as lazy, retreating, and negative . . . He welcomes criticism in theory. But in practice, he sees it all as defeatism, second-guessing, and 20-20 hindsight."

They weren't exactly cheering in New Orleans, and neither was Craig Crawford :

"A major metropolitan area wiped nearly off the face of the Earth, and it merits only six sentences on the next-to-last page of the President's State of the Union Address?!?!? Can there be any more proof that the federal government is washing its hands of the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. Dozens and dozens of paragraphs on rebuilding other nations, but barely a mention of New Orleans. Even more amazing is how Democrats could not see this gaping hole in the President's speech, at least not in the interviews I watched.

"Give credit to NBC Nightly News Anchor Brian Williams for seeing it and directly asking Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) about Bush's after-thought treatment of rebuilding the Gulf region. But Obama glossed right over Williams' on-target question, didn't rise to the bait in the least. No wonder Democrats cannot win elections."

Josh Marshall makes a telling admission and sounds on the verge of joining a 12-step group:

"I have a confession: I'm not sure when the last time was when I watched the State of the Union address. I think I may have watched it in 2003. But I'm not even certain of that. Perhaps a glance through the archives would show that I watched a bit of it last year, I don't know.

"The truth is, I find it unwatchable.

"Now, I read the transcript later. I'll often go back and watch key sections so I can get the flavor of a particular passage in the speech or of a debate it has spawned.

"But the thing itself (watching the actual production in real time) and then the imbecile chatter afterwards -- I just can't deal. I just find it unbearable.

"Are there others out there like me?"

As for the MSM, today's the day they tell you why most of the stuff in that speech ain't gonna happen:

"The energy proposals set out on Tuesday by President Bush quickly ran into obstacles on Wednesday, showing how difficult it will be to take even the limited steps he supports to reduce the nation's reliance on foreign oil," says the New York Times .

"On the day after he declared in his State of the Union address that the United States was 'addicted to oil' and had to wean itself from a century-old habit, Mr. Bush drew some support for putting the issue more prominently on the agenda but also skepticism about how achievable his goals really were. . . .

"Diplomatically, Mr. Bush's ambitious call for the replacement of 75 percent of the United States' Mideast oil imports with ethanol and other energy sources by 2025 upset Saudi Arabia, the main American oil supplier in the Persian Gulf. In an interview on Wednesday, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Turki al-Faisal, said he would have to 'seek an explanation' from Mr. Bush.

"Politically, both parties on Capitol Hill displayed a lack of enthusiasm. Democrats said Mr. Bush had opposed foreign oil reduction targets in last year's energy bill, and Republicans questioned the practicality of relying on ethanol and other alternatives."

Other than that, it was a smashing success.

Says the Los Angeles Times : "After making no progress winning congressional approval for the 10-year, $74-billion credit, administration officials have quietly revamped the measure in ways that would sharply reduce its costs and thereby offset the price tag for the White House's proposed expansion of health savings accounts."

So far, so good. But :

"Most elements of the administration's latest package are not new. Even sympathetic observers . . . think the plan stands little chance of passage during what promises to be a contentious midterm election year."

And then there's the truth-squadding:

"Legal specialists yesterday questioned the accuracy of President Bush's sweeping contentions about the legality of his domestic spying program, particularly his assertion in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday that 'previous presidents have used the same constitutional authority I have,'" says the Boston Globe .

What's the catch?

"But legal specialists said yesterday that wiretaps ordered by previous presidents were put in place before warrants were required for investigations involving national security."

I've been really troubled by those chilling and horrifying kidnap tapes that every network airs. Now I find MarketWatch's Jon Friedman raising the same issue I've been wondering about:

"The pictures provided such an indelible portrait of one courageous woman's fear that it will be a long time before I can get them out of my mind.

"In other words, I acted exactly the way the terrorists had intended. The clip made me feel weak and helpless. I feel this way every time someone is grabbed by militant enemies of America and dragged in front of TV cameras.

"You do, too, huh?

"Originally, Jill Carroll's captors had demanded that the U.S. free Iraqi women prisoners or they'd kill her. That deadline came and went. If the most recent footage of Carroll could be believed, she was still alive.

"What if . . .

"What would happen if the media took a different approach the next time an American (a journalist or not) is seized by a publicity-hungry terrorist?

"What if the American television networks -- out of a concern for the hostage's welfare -- didn't show the tape and thwarted the goal of the captors?

"Maybe it's time we refused to air a tape and, in effect, quit pandering (if unwittingly) to the terrorists."

I know, it's news, we must cover it, blah blah blah. But what if Friedman is right?

Here, courtesy of the WSJ, is part of the apology that James Frey is adding to his mega-best seller:

"My mistake, and it is one I deeply regret, is writing about the person I created in my mind to help me cope, and not the person who went through the experience."

A minor flaw, really, when you stop and think about it, writing about someone who doesn't exist doing things that never happened.

Finally, the satellite folks who are paying Howard Stern a half-billion bucks have a little problem: "Since Jan. 9, when Stern debuted on Sirius, pirated versions of the shows have been made available for free via several online file-sharing networks just hours after Stern signs off. . . . Now Sirius is, in a word, furious."