SOTU 2007--Take Two Asprin and Wake Me When it's Over
Those of us who touch on politics in our blogs are required by law, under pain of exile to that land where the only communications tools are fat, soft lead pencils and wide ruled Big Chief School Tablets, to expound on the Resident’s State of the Union Address. I was dutifully on my way to fulfilling this solemn obligation Tuesday night when I was mugged by an unwelcome ad (see my last post.)
Now, when everyone else has moved on to the condition of Scooter Libby’s toenail fungus which caused such a great distraction that he forgot that high ranking CIA spooks had spilled the beans to him about Joe Wilson’s wife’s job (phew!), I am ready to fulfill my obligation. Nothing less could be expected from the NUMBER 1 DEMOCRATIC/UU/PEACENIC/PRO-LABOR/POETRY BLOG IN McHENRY COUNTY, ILLINOIS (according to some unsubstantiated rumors.)
First off, let me come clean. I did not actually see the State of the Union (SOTU to inside the beltway hipsters.) I was at work, as usual for a Tuesday night, behind the register of a Crystal Lake gas station. I had my radio-yes just about the same kind of transistor radio we all had in 1965-tuned in to an appropriate AM news station. Between customers and chores I strained to hear most of what George W. had to say, fawning commentary by former senator and acting stud Fred Thompson, and Senator Jim Webb’s Democratic Party Response. So I was out of the game of assessing Nancy Pelosi’s wardrobe, keeping the exact count of who leapt their feet to applaud at exactly what statements, trying to catch Congress people snoring in their seats, or counting sneers and smirks on Dick Cheney’s face.
I admit that I could have gone to any number of online sources when I got home and watched the whole thing unfold in front of my very eyes as if for the fist time. But, frankly, I hadn’t the stomach for it. I would rather have volunteered for un-anesthetized fingernail extraction by a drunken hippo vet .
Listening on the radio, the technological equivalent of a wood burning steam locomotive, I can say for sure that George W. Bush is no Franklin Roosevelt. Hell, he isn’t even a Senator Beauregard Claghorn. He might be, on a good day, a passable Mortimer Snerd. But in this performance he did not, to my memory, utter any of the infamous Bushisms that have become his trade mark or engage in any lying so specific that he is apt to get nailed as Pinocchio (as in the famous 16 words) by some disgruntled Ambassador. Instead, the lies permeated the whole speech kind of like a low grade fever-you know it’s there, but it isn’t worth the energy to do anything about.
I’ll dispose of the second part of the speech first. It can be summed up thusly: Everyone knew what he was going to say. Nobody wanted to hear it. Not one mind in America changed, save that of 12 year old Chester “Chetster” Dinglebottom of Muncie, Indiana. He was moved because the X-Box was broken and he had to watch the speech with his parents. “You mean there is a war or something going on?” he asked. When told there was, he registered his strong support for the president, “Coooool Dude!”
Senator Webb later casually demolished the Resident’s feeble appeal for one more do-over as if he were scraping gum off of his shoe. ‘Nuff said on that topic.
So let’s take a look at the first half of the speech, the one which the op-ed pundits assured us was meant to “reach out to the Democrats now in power,” and “outlined areas of possible cooperation.” Well, its true that he outlined a short laundry list is issues dear to Democrats-and to the American public, for that matter. What is not true is that he offered any kind of concrete programs that were either acceptable on their face or were not shams covering his usual corporate smash and grab agenda.
Only on immigration is there the remotest chance of reaching an agreement with the Democrats, who generally favor some kind of accommodation for the millions of un-documented immigrants now in residence. On the last go-around, compromise immigration reform passed in the Senate was shot down by the nativist, mow-‘em-down-with-machine-guns-at-the-boarder House Republicans. But even here his hopes are dimmed because his interest is in providing a steady stream of cheap labor to his corporate pals, while most Democrats are looking for a humane way to include established, hard working families in the American Dream without giving a free hand to the oligarchs in undermining American wages.
George W’s approach to health care mirrored the “Blue Sky Initiative” for air pollution-a dodge using right sounding buzz words to cover for a nearly polar opposite policy. Bush’s sketchily drawn health care plan is based largely-surprise!-on “tax relief” proposals. He resurrects raising the upper limits on “Health Savings Accounts,” another notorious tax dodge for this favored richest 2%.
Then he proposes a confusing array of tax deductions to “encourage” un-covered Americans to buy private health coverage. But to pay for that he (althought not described in the SOTU) would count “gold plated” traditional fee-for service health plans above a certain level and provided by employers as taxable income. The trouble is that many elderly, sick, and high risk individuals would suddenly find this essential, but expensive benefit taxed. Many would have no choice but to drop coverage. And many employers would be encouraged to drop health care benefits.
Bush also offered assistance to states trying to create their own wider systems of health care coverage-but only to those state who would do so by underwriting purchase of private insurance. States opting for some sort of single payer plan would get nothing and would probably loose huge chunks of currently available Federal health care funding. In short, the President is not advocating making health care easily available and affordable. He wants to create a gigantic boondoggle for the insurance industry.
As a sop to the doctors, who despise insurance companies but hate malpractice lawyers just a tad more, he trotted out the familiar call for caps on malpractice settlements and shifting to a looser-pays-all system that would bar most folks of modest means from ever daring to sue.
The President trotted out, as he has done before, the need for energy self-sufficiency. Generally this has been an excuse to turn over all petroleum assets to the major oil companies as cheaply as possible with the fewest restrictions on one hand, while showering them with massive “tax incentives” to do what they were going to do anyway. This time he dressed it up with suggestions that he-and he really, really means it this time “cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die”-seriously wants to subsidize research and development of alternative of alternative fuels and-gasp!-even agrees to new higher fuel efficiency requirements for passenger cars. At the same time, however, he will balm the pain of his old oil buddies buying enough crude from them to double the size of the Strategic Reserves-a purchase sure to keep demand high and prices up.
As an after thought he allowed that energy conservations measures might also affect “global climate change.” This sent many commentators into state of rapturous praise. They believed that he had finally reversed himself and agree that, yes there really is “global warming”, Virginia. Only the keen of ear and the sharp of intellect picked up that “global climate change” is not the same as “global warming.” The latter is fraught with implications that is caused by human activity on the planet and that it might be ameliorated or even reversed by concerted action and major life-style changes. “Global climate change,” on the other hand, infers natural rhythms, perhaps ordained by God himself, over which mere mortals have no control. Translation: don’t expect any policy change from this administration.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
My fellow Americans, the State of the Union is bad and sliding to horrible. It will remain so as long as the current mob of thieves, thugs, and theocrats retains a shred of political authority. Oh-my-God! Save the People and bless the United States of America.