Pacific Views

Dubya's State of the Union in a nutshell.

At Road to Surfdom, Tim Dunlop has an excellent analysis of Dubya's speech, centering on how the prez vilifies his opponents.

The President's speech last night reflects the reality that the state of the union is deeply divided and that that doesn't concern him or his party too much. It underlined the fact that probably no president in living memory has so polarised the country. It was a blatantly partisan outing, that eschewed the rhetoric (and genuine feeling) of American unity that arose in the aftermath of 9/11 and replaced it with a righwing wishlist of ideological and special interest pandering, and bipartisanship be damned....

The speech last night shows an Administration bent on nothing other than its own perpetuation and one that is not willing to concede an inch, not even in the name of honestly representing the situation. It was a my-way-or-the-highway speech, showing he is willing to bully his own citizens in the same way he sees fit to bully the entire world, including US allies. The president reigns over a country deeply divided, that is militarily strong but that lacks legitimacy throughout the world, and certainly in Iraq. That this is the case is almost unimaginable given the goodwill and support directed towards the nation in the wake of September 11, 2001. But his foreign relations are simply a reflection of how he conducts his domestic politics, not as a grown-up debate amongst people of good will, but as a winner-takes-all, fight-to-the-finish where there are goodies and badies and you are either with him or against him (did you see the look on his face when some cheered the lapsing of certain clauses of the Patriot Act?) It is a surprisingly small-minded approach for the leader of a great nation to take.