Running On Empty

I'll be honest, I didn't watch President Bush's State of the Union address. It's not because I hate him, which I do. It's because the SOTU speech has become such a dog and pony show, and I just can't compel myself to watch such theatrics. It's just lame. I read the transcripts, it saves me a lot of time. I do want to touch on some of things from last night though.

I'll start with oil, Bush stated last night, "Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. Here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world."

Addicted to oil. No shit, welcome to the party. This is something that should have been addressed years ago. The problem is, that along with bush's other State of the Union addresses, the policy never matches the rhetoric. Saying doesn't equate to doing, and like tackling the AIDS problem in Africa, word don't pay the bills.

While trying to gin up support for the war, Bush had the following to say, "In a time of testing, we cannot find security by abandoning our commitments and retreating within our borders. If we were to leave these vicious attackers alone, they would not leave us alone. They would simply move the battlefield to our own shores." He went on to say, "America rejects the false comfort of isolationism."

Again the policy doesn't match the rhetoric, or at least it hasn't in the past. Bush is an unilateralist, and unilateralism is the new isolationism. Bush has been a great failure in getting the rest of the world on board with American policy, even though he was spotted the natural sympathy generated by 9/11. Bush squandered the opportunity granted him after 9/11 with his fool's folly in Iraq. I doubt he's learned his lesson.

Lastly, it was sad to see the plight of the Gulf Coast get a 51 second mention at the end of the speech as if it was thrown it at the last minute. This certainly deserves the full attention of the president, and he appears just as blase now as he was when he was when he was eating cake with John McCain while New Orleans drowned.

Overall, Bush seemed like a man bankrupt of ideas, that's the reason many republican pundits were pushing the meme of how important the tone of the speech was, with little to go on as far as new ideas are, tone is the only thing left. Bush seemed to be much like our gas tanks, running on empty.