Bush on the ropes....and the State of the Union

Back when I was a lot younger and crazier, I did some boxing. Not much, since I quickly picked up on the fact that hitting people and having them hit you back was not my preferred way of making a living, but enough to understand the basics and to realize that there's a certain detached mentality that's essential to beating your opponent..and kindness and mercy are usually not part of that equation.

Watching the president deliver his State of the Union address last night reminded me a little bit of those days. It's maybe the sixth round, you're pumped up and you've got your mo' going, you know you've really hurt your opponent bad and can see he's out of gas and just trying to last through the last minute or so before the bell rings. For most boxers, seeing an opponent in that condition effects them like blood in the water does a shark.

From the start of Bush's speech, (a little bit smarmy of brownnosing directed towards Speaker Nancy Pelosi) to the rather choppy ending, the president reminded me of nothing so much as that out of gas boxer trying to last out the round. And I'm sure it affected his opposition appropriately.

There was nothing really new in this speech. To summarize, the president went out of his way to appear conciliatory and address issues dear to a liberal's heart. He mouthed some platitudes on alternative energy just like he did last year, talked a little about the budget and cutting spending, put forth a health care proposition, more or less told the country that we have an amnesty bill for illegal aliens to look forward to, begged for some time for his new Iraq plan to work and mouthed the usual stuff about Arab democracy.

He still hasn't learned that given the ballot, these people will vote for Islam and tribalism every time, just as they have in Iraq, `Palestine' and Lebanon.

Some of the phrases appear to have been grafted or slightly adapted from earlier speeches.

If the president thought that his words were going to inspire the country or win him any points with the Democrats, he was sadly mistaken.

Senator Jim Webb's rebuttal
was short, incisive and to the point on that, and to be perfectly honest, I found very little to quarrel with in what Senator Webb had to say.

The Senate foreign relations committee hit him with the other hand today, voting for a non-binding resolution that's basically a vote of no confidence his plans in Iraq.

And in terms of his poll ratings,the president actually dropped a couple of points. And those ratings were not an expression of partisan ship. In polls I saw that addressed the question, a clear majority had little confidence in the democratic leadership in congress either.

In short the country is ripe for some real leadership...and we're not getting it.

The dissatisfaction with this president and his low ratings aren't coming from the Left. They've hated him with a passion since the 2000 election. The disdain for the president - and his low poll numbers - are coming from the center and from conservatives.

Bush's betrayal of the people that supported him goes back to the out of control budget, the Dubai Ports deal, the sieve on our borders, the refusal to act to curb the Saudi importing of jihad here at home, and a dozen other issues he's failed to address. Not least of which, in my opinion, is a justifiable impatience with the fiasco he's engendered in Iraq.

Full disclosure: I not only voted for this president, I worked on his campaign. And with all my criticism of him, I want nothing more than for him to succeed, even now, with everything that's happened. The issues involved are too important.