State of the Union Speech 2008, And Other Signs Our Long National Nightmare May Someday End

Leave your Open Thread thoughts on tonight’s State of the Union Speech in comments below…

POST-SOTU UPDATE: The Republicanists at Fox “News” just can’t help themselves, even for the State of the Union…

UPDATE 8:10pm PT: Following the (supposedly) “centrist” response to the SOTU, offered up by the scared-to-death Democratic “leadership”, in the person of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sibelius, a real response to Bush’s SOTU was sent out by Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI). The short response follows below in full, and serves to remind us what reality looks like…

Statement of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold
In Response to the President’s State of the Union Address

“In his final state of the union address, President Bush unfortunately continued to advocate positions and policies that have been harmful to our nation. He once again attempted to bully Congress into giving broad powers to the executive branch far beyond what is necessary to protect the country from terrorists. Congress must stand up to these tactics and pass a law that allows our intelligence community to go after al Qaeda and other threats to our national security while protecting the rights and freedoms of law-abiding Americans.

“Perhaps most troubling was the President’s steadfast commitment to an Iraq policy that has led to the deaths of nearly 4,000 American troops, continues to cost this country billions of dollars per month, and fails to make us safer in the global fight against al Qaeda and its affiliates. The president’s policies are keeping nearly 160,000 American troops stuck in Iraq and sapping our ability to address the global terrorist threat presented by al Qaeda.

“As we continue to pay a tremendous price because of the administration’s myopic focus on Iraq, al Qaeda maintains its safe haven in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The recent bombings in Algeria also remind us that the enemy we face is global and that a narrow focus on Iraq is self-defeating. Our next commander-in-chief will face great challenges in this critical region of the world, made more difficult because of the lack of attention the Bush administration has given to it.

“It is important to note that this is the last state of the union this President will give. I look forward to working with whoever takes office as our next President to change course, and begin to undo the damage this Administration will leave behind. We need to reform our broken health care system, and move away from a one-size-fits-all education policy. We need a real commitment to protecting our environment, and to moving away from the flawed trade policies that have led to so many American workers watching their jobs leave this country. I join many Americans in looking forward to addressing these challenges as the country prepares to move beyond the failed policies of this administration.”

30 Responses

  8. All we need to remember is “According to Mr. Suskind, “The Bush aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ ”
    “The Bush aide told Mr. Suskind, “That’s not the way the world really works anymore. We’re an empire now, and when we act we create our own reality.””

  9. Hey guys this is OT

    If either John Edwards or Obama could snag Russ Feingold as their running mate and declare it now before Super Tuesday then the future might change a little.

    Is this just dreaming?

  10. we’re doomed.
    We’ll never make it.
    You couldn’t write a worse truth about US reality with a bunch of less than 2nd class treasonous pirates.

  11. The thing i don’t get is when did it become fashionable to allow greedy 2 faced lying douchebags and their anti-environmental loser policy changes to get away with BLOODY murder. Using the fighting terrorism battle cry, they stabbed Americans in the back by selling nuclear secrets to other countries. Then they strutted their loser-ness by creating a trigger happy fearful world causing escalation of nukes and talking global 1st nuclear strike in their DEATH LOVING WASHINGTON THINK TANKS.

    TO THE BUSH-CHENEY CRIME FAMILY: I WILL DESTROY YOUR MIND GAME.

    Contrarily,my reality is the reduction of my rights as US citizens and watching a now passive legislative branch morph into something powerless to YOUR Executive branch criminal actions. Bush government dealt a devastating blow in the history of political rule in American government and THEIR “loose” definition of the rule of law as it applies to the Bush-Cheney administration.

    We need a Commander In Chief who will say,”Put the weapons down.” These oil barons really enjoy using the #1 military in the world as their own private army. However, militarism in not answer to creating balance and harmony amongst the countries on planet earth. It only leads to a final bomb going off by a poor decision of an unfit leader.

    Shoot out the lights and start the revolution.

    We must end the war and save the planet. Help support the NRDC’s efforts to save Yellowstone wolves from slaughter. http://www.NRDC.org

  12. I spent all day with the C-SPAN 2. Started out annoying with the Senators making religious speeches before picking up on FISA. The whole weirdness about that is someone has to be lying. Both Chris Dodd and the various Republicans can’t be right. Not only that but where are the missing senators? When you have a 48-45 vote, ain’t that like saying 20 or so senators are missing? I dunno.
    Took a break for a couple hours, then the SOTU thing came on. I was half awake, half sleeping through, I do remember hearing a bunch of disturbing new buzz words, one of which was,

    “The new constitution”

    I don’t know if I was dreaming or what. I wonder if anyone else picked up on these new buzzwords, I can’t remember any more right now. Maybe it was because of my relaxed state. I finally woke up and became conscious after the speech ended, and spent an enjoyable time listening to the house members talking about the speech. I didn’t watch not one alphabet channel, and it was an enjoyable evening. I learned a lot about each of the house members. CSPAN does an incredible job.

    I pity those who slogged through the ABC’s, CBS’s, NBC’s or FOX’s spin drones with all the commercials, and fake journalists doing the annoying voice overs, and expert spin crap. I missed all that, but remember it well. All I can say to you is it’s all the more reason to outlaw all electronic vote tabulation devices and
    beef the hell out of paper ballots, public oversight, and chain of custody, so we can finally get these oath breakers out.

    Till then, spread the word to tune the corporate news out. They really suck. The less that watch and listen, the less valuable they will be. Oh yeah, while I’m on it, a couple stations out here in Sacramento are up for their FCC renewal, I believe 31, and 58, nice time to head down to their public books and give your opinion. Maybe other stations in your local area are doing the same, go look into it.

    Peace.

  13. It was the same old blather that always comes out of his mouth, and the sooner he’s gone the better for your country.

    He’s such a lying, two-faced warmonger who is now trying to save face in the last year of office by urging congress to pass this, that and the other…..why did he wait until now…? Why did he veto so many proposals through the years…?

    I was hoping that someone would have had the balls to heckle him. I know, I know…..not very respectful to the commander in chief, but as far as I’m concerned, he doesn’t deserve ANY respect whatsoever. All he and his cohorts deserve is a speedy trial for the war crimes they’ve committed, and that’s just for starters.

  14. “The short response follows below in full, and serves to remind us what reality looks like…” – Bradblog

    Reality looks like another lying politician dishing out feel good rhetoric while promising to maintain the status quo in the future?

    “I look forward to working with whoever takes office as our next President to change course” – Russ Feingold

    Has history not shown that the next President will maintain the same course we’ve been on for more than a century? Do not all but one of the Republican candidates and all of the Democratic candidates promise to maintain the status quo?

    Mr. Russ Feingold talks a good talk, but he doesn’t walk the same walk. His record betrays him as being of the same ilk as George W. Bush.

  15. “If either John Edwards or Obama could snag Russ Feingold as their running mate and declare it now before Super Tuesday then the future might change a little.

    Is this just dreaming?”

    Yes. Neither Edwards nor Obama nor Feingold have any real plan of making genuinely positive change in this country. If you examine again Mr. Feingold’s response you will see that his “solution” is to increase Congress’s powers, conveniently ignoring that Congress has been critical to the executive branch usurping power. His real concern like other politicians is expanding his own power. Rhetoric arguing against other politicians doing the exact same thing makes for good sound bites and nothing more.

  16. Brad #4

    It is not just you Brad, it is most of us. We realize that preznit blush is a shame upon our land, from sea to shining sea. We now know that if his lips are moving odds are that he is lying or being delusional.

    There are not “many here among us who feel that life is but a joke”, but preznit blush thinks his miserable life is a joke to play on other people.

    It is called a tragedy preznit blush, and it is not a joke, because the universe will deal with you in its own time, its own way, and its own place.

    Somebody start one of those counters that counts downward. Have it count til the second this vile fascist is removed from office.

  17. Greg Palast has a nice focus on the “kindheartedness” of the SOTU:

    In his State of the Union, the President asked Congress for $300 million for poor kids in the inner city. As there are, officially, 15 million children in America living in poverty, how much is that per child? Correct! $20.

    Here’s your second question. The President also demanded that Congress extend his tax cuts. The cost: $4.3 trillion over ten years. The big recipients are millionaires. And the number of millionaires happens, not coincidentally, to equal the number of poor kids, roughly 15 million of them. OK class: what is the cost of the tax cut per millionaire? That’s right, Richie, $287,000 apiece.

    (Greg Palast, emphasis added).

  18. Empty suit. How many times have we seen George walking briskly to his plane waving his unusual tinker bell wave…One brave camera man moved his camera slightly to show George waving to the sky. So indicative of the true state of his mind.

  19. SOTU:

    New home sales plunged in 2007 by the largest amount on record …

    (AP News @ Raw Story, emphasis added). Heckuva job bushies, you broke the all time record as you broke America and made it in your own image: Amurka.

    SOTU:

    The United States used waterboarding in terrorism interrogations but no longer does, a former U.S. spy chief said in the Bush administration’s clearest confirmation of the technique’s use.

    U.S. officials have been reluctant to acknowledge the CIA’s use of the simulated drowning technique [waterboarding], which human rights groups call an illegal form of torture.

    (Spy Chief Confirms Waterboarding, emphasis added). America has degenerated into Amurka the torture nation, in front of the whole world. They clearly know. Only Amurkans believe the bushie lie “we don’t torture”.

  23. The passing of the Bush administration will be a small blessing, but the hardware of evil may still be in tact. During the Bush Drug War in Thailand thousands of people were murdered, including many Akha hill people. The poorest of the poor. US military aid to Thailand during this time was extensive, but has since increased.

    Asia Times on $’s and Coup

    Frida Berrigan, senior research associate at the Arms Trade Resource Center at the New York-based World Policy Institute.

    In this article it is noted that $2 billion in Aid went to the Thais through IMET, the commando units, from whence the coup originated.

    This presidency has done more to slaughter people around the world and destroy democracy than can be told.

    The Bush Administration along with UNODC Antonio Maria Costa also forced a ill begotten opium eradication program on Laos that resulted in the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of villagers who were made to move down the mountains into cerebral malaria infested regions. They tried to blame the disaster on the govt. of Laos. Laos exported very little opium to the west.

  24. (22 cont)…and what the hell good would it do to bitch about S Carolina anyway?, when they count their votes in private with no provable way of verifying?

  26. Sebelius was not only feeble in her response to Bushit, but this was obviously a prelude to a political endorsement. As such, it was not merely a wasted opportunity, it adds another link to a long chain of Democratic cowardice and ineptitude, rising to the level of betrayal as Pelosi’s rejection of impeachment. I suspect that this was prepared in collusion with a campaign, rather than a combined effort of a party.

It would be interesting to see her communications during its preparation.

  27. if the NAU is made effective by 2010, & the next pres. election not ’til 2012, could this be the LAST presidential election, as we know it?

  28. Kos is quoted as saying:

    This [CIA] is a very liberal institution. And in a lot of ways, it really does attract people who want to make a better, you know, want to make the world a better place…. Of course, they’ve got their Dirty Ops and this and that, right but as an institution itself the CIA is really interested in stable world. That’s what they’re interested in. And stable worlds aren’t created by destabilizing regimes and creating wars…. I don’t think it’s a very partisan thing to want a stable world. And even if you’re protecting American interests, I mean that can get ugly at times, but generally speaking I think their hearts in the right place. As an organization their heart is in the right place. I’ve never had any problem with the CIA. I’d have no problem working for them

    (Kosspeak). I think the Amurkan blog DailyKos is headed by an Amurkan, because if he defines “liberal” as CIA i think we know how he defines “progressive”.

  29. I think Russ is a great guy but discussing how we have to scale back from Iraq in order to ward off the threat of Al Qaeda totally misses the REAL point. Al Qaeda is a creation of the U.S., dating back to the Afghan war. Osama was our paid agent. In order to maintain such a hell-bent-for-the-apocalypse public policy we MUST HAVE CREDIBLE ENEMIES. This is the key to the whole scam. How else can we be stupefied to ignore poverty, disease, ignorance, and global warming so that we can build torture prisons and incarcerate entire cities (Fallujah) and bomb neighborhoods from above and otherwise WASTE huge amounts of resources whilst our real problems go unattended.

    This is all about who’s in control of the ship. The dudes in charge now think the rapture’s a’comin, so who the hell cares about long term anyway…

    I don’t buy that philosophy. We have to look clear-eyed at our problems, or they will be the end of us all.

  30. Yuh, ignoring our ignorance is a bad problem, but ignoring what we have ignored, and so must keep ignoring, is about all government is doing nowadays. Try listening to Russ, or any of them, on the Senate Foreign Relations committee talking about the status in Afghanistan and see if you don’t feel as though someone slipped something into your coffee. I dare ya. It isn’t just the solving of the problems: it’s also just gaining the ability to deal rationally with anything, to stop compounding the egregious errors, to still the ripples of malignity from their ignored reality of origin.