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Random Thoughts on the State of the Union Address
- Watching the sycophantic members of Congress line the aisles for the opportunity to be seen shaking the president's hand just never gets old.
- Alberto Gonzalez apparently drew the short straw, and was designated to serve as the Cabinet official who skips the speech just to make sure someone is available to be president in the event of the unthinkable at the Capitol.
- Pretty classy gesture for President Bush to follow House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's "high privilege and distinct honor" introductory line with this: "I have a high privilege and distinct honor of my own â€" as the first president to begin the State of the Union message with these words: 'Madam Speaker.' "
- Apparently, when the president said recently that we needed to find a way to get more civilians to go to Iraq, he wasn't referring to civilian federal employees, but private-sector folks. At least that's what it sounds like from his proposal for a "Civilian Reserve Corps." (By the way, Brian Williams noted on MSNBC after the speech that this particular proposal drew a decidedly tepid reaction from the audience.)
- As has become traditional in State of the Union addresses by both Republican and Democratic presidents in recent years, the speech was heavy with references to new federal policy initiatives and growth in the size of government (for example, doubling the size of the Border Patrol and boosting Army and Marine Corps forces), but at the same time, the president insisted that the key to the country's future lay "not with more government but with more enterprise," and pledged to "restrain the spending appetite of the federal government."
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