The State of the Union

Although the State of the Union Address was 2 days ago, I just finished watching it. I was in class during the speech and I had to watch it in bits and pieces. For anybody that missed it, I would recomment watching, listening or reading to it here.

I actually thought that the speech was very well delivered and written. Aside from the lists of unobtainable goals (isn't that the theme of every State of the Union address?), there were a few parts of the speech that stood out to me.

The first thing that I liked was President Bush's call to end 'earmarks'. These are "little" projects that Senators and Representatives tack onto a bill after it has passed committee. We all benefit from them, but it is simply a slick way for a representative to get something nice done for their constituencies. This is a huge reason that the budget has spiraled wildly out of control. It is possibly my biggest pet peeve with Washington. This is one of the few truly 'obtainable' goals outlined by Bush.

President Bush quoted Luke 12:48 "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required;" With that he talked about helping stop the spread of Aids, and poverty in Africa. He has mentioned this in speeches past and I have no idea if anything has ever come from it but it certainly is a worthy cause and one that I am willing to support.

Probably the biggest 'unobtainable' goal by President Bush was to curb our nation's oil usage by 20% within a decade. I certainly believe that the technology is there, but I do not believe that this country is willing to make the financial sacrifices needed to actually obtain this goal. I will still hope and wish it were true though.

President Bush was very respectful of the first woman speaker (Nancy Pelosi) and I think that she is always very respectful to the President - although we all know she hates him.

My favorite part of the speech was when President Bush introduced "heroes" of our "decent honourable country." He introduced Wesley Autry who is now commonly known as the "Subway hero" (Not Subway restaurant - that's Jared, this refers to the NYC Subway). In short, a man fell on the tracks, having a seizure, when a train was coming and Mr. Autry jumped down and help him down as the train rolled over them both. What an amazing, quick-thinking guy.

Bush also introduced Dikembe Mutombo and others (including the founder of Baby Einstein, not a hero, but obviously a big donater to the Bush campaign...).

Aside from the problematic failure of the Iraq war, which he also discussed, the speech made many good points - He'll ceratinly learn to compromise during the next 2 years or nothing will get done.