The Union in a State of Disarray, DistrustWhen Nancy sat next to Darth, when Dubya's entrance was announced with "Madame Speaker," shards of glass fell from the ceiling. Talk about girl interrupted.
After years of watching the Jacks in the box behind the president, finally a Jill -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- crashed the party. This wasn't just a NOW moment for women. A male friend of Sicilian descent beams proudly about having an Italian grandmother second in line to the presidency. Admit it. The real reason to watch was to see her, not him. His irrelevance is so predictable. Like watching the blonde run through the woods in a horror movie. You know she's going to fall. Did you really need to tune in for his ad nauseum defense of gunboat diplomacy? Were you surprised by the excess of platitudes and absence of actual plans? In a latter-day Senate challenge, Republican Chuck Hagel asked, "Show us the plan. … There is no plan." Hagel told senators to stop hiding and take a stand. John Warner stood tall in the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Virginia Republican has bipartisan support for his resolution denouncing the troop increase. By week's end there were already two resolutions from committees objecting to President Bush's surge and one by Robert Byrd to stop the imperial president's "unconstitutional doctrine of pre-emption." Bush backer John McCain took time from the campaign trail to resolve some benchmarks for Iraqis to hasten redeployment. At this defection rate, on Bush's last day, only Joseph Lieberman will be left to turn off the lights. You know he will. On energy policy, the only renewables George W. Bush had to offer was a recycled speech. You were dreaming if you thought he said "global warming." He didn't. Plus we still don't know who was in Dick Cheney's secret energy club. Bush did not give an overview of the union's state, which is what this annual interruption was meant to be.
A speech this important ought to bring us to our feet, not make us reach for the mute button. All genuine ovations that night belonged to freshman Sen. Jim Webb. In less time, the Virginian made more sense in the Democratic rebuttal and showed more passion and conviction. It's gotten so that when Bush talks, all America hears is "blah, blah, blah." A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that 57 percent of respondents don't think ousting Saddam Hussein was worth it. Bush and Cheney keep saying it was. In Bush World, crows are white and doves black. Only in Bush World would Cheney call "hogwash" accurate assessments of the war's failings, some expressed by the Iraq Study Group, which included Sandra Day O'Connor, Alan Simpson and Edwin Meese III. Dick Durbin called Cheney "delusional." Try pathological. The polls gauge more than Bush's popularity. They gauge trustworthiness and competence. In May 2006, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 52 percent of respondents thought the administration "intentionally misled the American people." Well, duh! Bush wasted political capital. That November "thumping" didn't stick. He misses opportunities for diplomacy and bipartisanship. That NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, taken before the president's address, found that 65 percent of respondents think Bush faces a major setback in his presidency from which he is unlikely to recover. Even Texans realize that dog won't hunt. Faculty at Southern Methodist University worry that Bush's tarnished presidency hurts the future of a presidential library there. Not a word in his speech about Hurricane Katrina. What happened in the Gulf states, especially to Louisiana and Mississippi, greatly affected the state of our union. Even Trent Lott sued his home insurer! Rhonda Chriss Lokeman (lokeman@kcstar.com) is a columnist for the Kansas City Star. To find out more about Rhonda Chriss Lokeman, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
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