Listening to George W. Bush deliver his penultimate State of the Union address on Tuesday night, I thought about Shakespeare's line that "some have greatness thrust upon them." Just our luck to get a president who pushed it away.

My newspaper column continues after the jump.

State of Union: Requiem for a lightweight

by Edward Cone
News & Record
1-28-07

Listening to George W. Bush deliver his penultimate State of the Union address on Tuesday night, I thought about Shakespeare's line that "some have greatness thrust upon them." Just our luck to get a president who pushed it away.

Circumstance gave Bush his chance at greatness in the wake of 9/11, but after a strong start in Afghanistan he squandered that chance with his ill-conceived Iraq adventure. He didn't get around to discussing the war until almost halfway through the speech, but it loomed over everything he said in his wan opening stanzas, just as it will define his legacy for generations to come. The subtext of the evening was the same theme that has haunted this presidency since the disastrous "Axis of Evil" speech in the same forum five years ago: What Might Have Been.

The address started well enough, with a nod to history and Nancy Pelosi and the importance of being, as Bush said, "the first president to begin the State of the Union message with these words: Madam Speaker." But the huge cheer that met that statement hardly had faded before he launched into a domestic agenda that struck a balance between too little and too late.

Weak words

Energy independence via conservation and the development of alternative fuels? Those things should have been the focus of a Manhattan Project-scale effort announced in that first State of the Union address after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, not a seeming afterthought that may serve mainly as a subsidy program for agribusiness. The brief acknowledgment of "the serious challenge of global climate change" came only after years of denial and obfuscation in the face of sound science.

The president floated a late-blooming plan to make health insurance more affordable, but it was one deemed dead on arrival by most analysts before the speech was even delivered. There was a tepid reminder that Social Security needs some attention, but Bush's follow-up to the crashingly unpopular privatization scheme upon which he spent so much of his vaunted political capital was spelled out no further than an appeal to "good sense and good will." And there was a statement of intent to balance the budget after years of fat deficits on his watch.

Many of these ideas seemed calculated to placate the new Democratic majorities in Congress, which Bush himself did so much to create, and to respond to the renewed voguishness of economic liberalism, or at least populism; another of Bush 43's legacies may be terminating the long Republican ascendancy in American politics. Certainly the man who once promised to be a uniter, not a divider, has delivered on that pledge, although not as he intended: Polls show that public opinion has reached historic levels of agreement regarding disapproval of his policies and job performance.

At last the president began to speak about the war he chose to fight and has managed so poorly. As Virginia Sen. Jim Webb said in the Democratic response to Bush's speech, "We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable -- and predicted -- disarray that has followed." And yet Bush is still the commander in chief for another two years, and he is entirely correct that the consequences of defeat and retreat in Iraq must be weighed seriously, and his speech took on a tone of greater authority as he discussed his belated strategy to revive our fortunes in Mesopotamia and prevent a full-fledged religious and regional war.

Dangerous moment

His words, though, were spoken to a restive Congress and a national audience (larger than the one that tuned in for "American Idol," and that doesn't even count those of us who watched it online) that has lost patience with the man and his plans. It is a dangerous moment for the nation and the world because ultimately Bush's responsibility for the mess is less important than the mess itself and our obligation to fix it. That doesn't mean the escalation for which he pleaded is the right course, or the wrong one, but it does mean that the country cannot afford to tune out the message with the messenger.

Bush closed with the usual uplifting personal stories of Americans who do great things, including Wesley Autrey, the man who jumped onto a New York subway track to save a stranger's life, and Sgt. Tommy Rieman, who won a Silver Star for his courage under fire in Iraq.

He used those examples to argue that the State of our Union is strong, and in the broader context his words remain true; the weakness that bedevils us is in the speaker of those words.

© News & Record 2007

Edward Cone (www.edcone.com, efcone@mindspring.com) writes a column for the News & Record most Sundays.

Comments

[ew]

"Bush is still the commander in chief"
Glenn Greenwald has an interesting discussion on the use of "commander in chief" to refer to the Pres.
http://haloscan.com/tb/glenngreenwald/116990591007674869

[Anglico]

The medium IS the message and they are fundamentally inseparable. The Child King is a lost boy, having told too many lies, deceived too many who trusted him, and destroyed far, far too much of the world around him. Yes he is commander in chief, but he is, at the same time, all but irrelevant in the drama that is unfolding.

He will do his escalation and it will be as inconsequential as he, though many will die in the pursuit. He will stomp his feet and complain that no one will follow him, while adults calmly go about the business of cleaning up his sorry mess.

The only saving grace is that George Bush will carry the Party of Greed with him into a well-deserved time-out. That respite could indeed last for generations.

[Kirk D.]

Very well said Anglico.

[sean coon]

ditto.

[The CA]

Maybe if you're lucky, Anglico, Sen. Clinton will be elected President instead of John Edwards, another practicioner of greed- and hypocrisy on same.

The adults are in command, the weaklings are the children who still believe that singing "Kumbaya" and negotiating with terrorist countries will bring about peace. Who is really being naive here?

[Bubba]

"The only saving grace is that George Bush will carry the Party of Greed with him into a well-deserved time-out. That respite could indeed last for generations."

No, sorry....I don't think the President has the power to do that to the Democratics.

[Anglico]

Come on, Bub. I didn't say he had any power. The Child King is stumbling blindly into this just like he does everything else.

And as to your confusion about the Party of Greed, even you know I'm right about this one. Democrats may be looney on some other fronts, but pure, unadulterated greed is not one of them.

[Anglico]

CA ... that's funny ... but I've promised myself and my friends that I will have no conversations about presidential politics until 2008. Sorry.

A

PS I'm just wondering if you could point me in the direction of some of that "peace" your bad-boys have been achieving lately. Or maybe you subscribe to the "war without end" theory of life, in which case, WTF are you doing here blogging? You should be out humping in some Iraqi sandstorm getting your legs blown off.

[Danny Wright]

Ouch.

[Connie Mack Jr]

WTF are you doing here blogging? You should be out humping in some Iraqi sandstorm getting your legs blown off.*Anglico

Reality is not Lawyer Sam strong point like a few so-called repub conservatives here. I would be happy trade his coward yellow streaking ass for my son and his unit return now. Sam! You have no fucking idea what it is like every night waiting for word whether he is dead or alive for a losing lying cause you insane idiots supported.

Do something! Like sign up as Jag Officer and sorted out the legal body counts in Baghdad without the protection of the Green Zone.