WASHINGTON (ABP) — Delivering his fifth State of the Union address Jan. 31, President Bush presented an agenda much less expansive and ambitious than in previous years — and one with scant mention of many of the issues important to his conservative religious base.
Bush delivered the speech to a joint session of Congress only a year after he had stood in the same spot, fresh off of his inauguration to a second term, and vowed to spend the political capital he believed the nation's voters had granted him.
But the ensuing year proved the most difficult of Bush's presidency. His administration took much of the public blame for an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq, botched government response to Hurricane Katrina and other disasters, a failed effort at dramatically overhauling Social Security and serious questions about the ethical uprightness of some top administration officials and their congressional allies.
In response, Bush delivered a speech defending his conduct of the war but calling only for modest domestic policy changes in the areas of energy independence and health care.
“Our work in Iraq is difficult because our enemy is brutal. But that brutality has not stopped the dramatic progress of a new democracy,” Bush told a chamber bitterly divided along partisan lines. “I am confident in our plan for victory. I am confident in the will of the Iraqi people. I am confident in the skill and spirit of our military. Fellow citizens, we are in this fight to win, and we are winning.”
Republicans in the chamber leapt to their feet in applause following that line. But virtually no Democrats — many of whom oppose the war's conduct and some of whom oppose its continuation — applauded. A handful jeered.
Later, to illustrate the high cost of the war, Bush made reference to Marine Sgt. Dan Clay, who died during an enemy attack in Fallujah, Iraq, last month. He motioned to Clay's surviving family members, who were seated in the chamber's gallery, and quoted from the letter Clay wrote to them, to be read in the event of his death: “Never falter! Don't hesitate to honor and support those of us who have the honor of protecting that which is worth protecting,” Bush quoted Clay as saying.
As Clay's survivors stood and members of Congress applauded unanimously, his widow, Lisa, clutched at her heart and mouthed the words “Thank you.”
But more divisive sentiments about the war were evident. After a line in which Bush admonished his audience to “never forget the sacrifices of America's families,” Democrats were the first to give a standing ovation.
Earlier, shortly before Bush's arrival in the chamber, Capitol Police arrested famous war protester Cindy Sheehan for demonstrating from her seat in the gallery. The mother of a soldier slain in Iraq, she took off a jacket to reveal a T-shirt that had an anti-war slogan. According to her blog, it read “2245 Dead. How many more?” — a reference to the latest toll of American military deaths in the Iraq war.
Capitol regulations prohibit demonstrations in the chambers of Congress. According to the Washington Post, the Capitol Police also ejected the wife of a powerful Republican congressman for wearing a shirt that said “Support the Troops — Defending Our Freedom.” The newspaper said Beverly Young, whose husband, Florida Rep. Bill Young, is chairman of the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee, was told to leave the chamber for violating the same rule as Sheehan.
In contrast to his 2003 State of the Union address, where he built his case for invading Iraq, Bush delivered only brief warnings to other regimes he said threaten the world's security. He singled out Iran — where a new government is openly touting the nation's nuclear ambitions — as well as the dictatorships in charge of Syria, Burma, Zimbabwe and North Korea.
And, while Bush earlier asserted that “dictatorships shelter terrorists” while “democracies replace resentment with hope, respect the rights of their citizens and their neighbors, and join the fight against terror,” he also chastised the recently elected government of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas, an organization that openly champions terrorism and the destruction of Israel, shocked the world by sweeping the Palestinian parliamentary elections the week before Bush's speech.
“The Palestinian people have voted in elections. And now the leaders of Hamas must recognize Israel, disarm, reject terrorism, and work for lasting peace,” Bush said, to bipartisan applause.
On domestic issues, the president laid out proposals much less innovative and ambitious than his Social Security plan from the year before. It proved widely unpopular, and never even made it into a formal legislative proposal for Congress to consider.
He endorsed making permanent several tax cuts Congress has already passed but that are set to expire in five years. The idea is unpopular with virtually all Democrats and some Republicans. But Bush simultaneously asserted that proposed cuts in the growth of some social programs would mean the nation would “stay on track to cut the [federal budget] deficit in half by 2009.”
The independent Congressional Budget Office has said extending the tax cuts would mean significant increases in the federal deficit.
On health care, Bush attempted to lasso a traditionally Democratic issue.
Bush alluded to an administration proposal to create more incentives for Americans to establish Health Savings Accounts — untaxed income set aside to reimburse health-care expenses that were authorized by a 2004 law. To be eligible for HSAs, families or individuals must have health insurance plans that are limited and have high deductibles.
But Democrats, speaking to reporters after the speech, said encouraging more Americans to use HSAs would be only a very limited response to the health-care crisis.
“There didn't seem to be any beef there,” said Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). “For the 46 million who need health insurance, this does nothing to help them.”
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), when asked for a quick reaction to the speech, said he would sum it up in two words: “Nothing new.”
Bush made only glancing references to many of the issues that animate religious conservatives. He again endorsed abstinence-based sex education for teenagers — and made an oblique reference to same-sex marriage in a laundry list of seemingly unrelated social ills.
But one conspicuous omission disappointed some conservative allies. “Unfortunately, the president stopped short of addressing the necessity of a marriage amendment that would protect the union of one man and one woman,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. “All efforts to establish a healthy and stable union stem from the stability and protection of our most basic foundation — family.”
Bush has endorsed such an amendment in previous State of the Union addresses.
But despite any such concerns, social conservatives and Bush celebrated one of their biggest victories in recent years last night — the confirmation of Samuel Alito to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court.
In an indication of which way most policymakers expect Alito to shift the court's jurisprudence, one of the loudest and most passionate of the evening came before Bush's speech. Republicans cheered loudly when Alito and other members of the high court took their seats in front of the speaker's well. Some Democrats refused even to applaud.
-30-