State of the Union Open Thread

[bailunrui]

I still don't know if I'm going to watch it. However, I don't recommend watching it alone because expensive glassware may be broken (after hurling it through the air at the television). That's why I'm leaving this post as an open thread. The speech will air on just about every channel ever at 9pm Eastern time

Comments

[tbschemer]

This is off-topic, but could you please support the claim of your icon?
Bush isn't a great president (Clinton was pretty good in comparison), but many others were far worse.

For instance:

James Buchanan allowed the civil war to begin by doing nothing while the Democrats were threatening to secede.

Warren G. Harding was completely oblivious as to the corruption that was going on in his own cabinet. While a huge conspiracy was plaguing the government, he was struggling to maintain his image.

John F. Kennedy was actually one of the worse presidents, despite his title as a national hero for getting shot. He caused the Bay of Pigs event, he started American involvement in the Vietnam war (France originally started the war), and Kennedy, after driving Cuba away from us, was almost ready to compromise with Castro and accept his oppressive beliefs shortly before being shot.

Andrew Jackson, while being great for promoting universal suffrage, was horrible at actually controlling the country. Over a personal vendetta, he starved the United States national bank out of existence, creating the nation's first economic depression.

Jimmy Carter is a great guy, but as a president, he was just far too weak. He just really didn't accomplish anything (neither did Millard Fillmore).

George W. Bush just isn't that bad in comparison to the other bad ones. Sure, he is waging a war, but it's actually not a costly war in comparison to all the others. Congress (keep in mind that Congress declares war, not the president) had good reason to start the war, and it would be horribly foolish to end the war before victory has been achieved. Currently, our $4.5 trillion national debt is about 60%-70% from entitlement programs, but when Bush tried to reform these entitlement programs to make them more productive and less costly, the Democratic party leaders started up a fear campaign against Bush's proposal, causing it to be shot down by Congress. Yes, the patriot act is unconstitutional, but both Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt enacted similar programs during the wars that they presided over.

So, really, all-in-all Bush isn't that bad, and this state of the union address was one of his best speeches (except for the part where he said he wanted to limit human genetic engineering).