Crash and Burn
The State of Bush's Union Circles the Drain

by Daniel Patrick Welch / February 1st, 2008

“The State of the Union is strong!” bellowed Bill Clinton in his Last Hurrah before the joint session of the US congress some eight years ago. It is customary at these photo-op-cum-dog-and-pony-show spectacles to engage in inflated rhetoric. Hence George Bush’s proud announcement that “we showed the world the power and resilience of American self-government.” Did we ever! Take that, world! Otherwise Bush has dutifully followed suit, trying to fit the bill that Reagan and then Clinton established as the norm: there were the usual heroic guests, like the Virginia Tech student who stemmed the bleeding of his own femoral artery during the shooting at the Blacksburg campus last Spring. There were the usual partisan rhetorical flourishes, a sort of pageantry where one half of the chamber applauds vociferously and the other sits on its hands. Of course, if any of them had any integrity, they wouldn’t show up at all. (Full article …)