California Conservative

President Bush set the stage for the 2006 midterms with his SOTU Address and he did so in fine fashion. Here’s some of the sections that jumped out most at me:

Abroad, our Nation is committed to an historic, long-term goal, we seek the end of tyranny in our world. Some dismiss that goal as misguided idealism. In reality, the future security of America depends on it. On September 11th, 2001, we found that problems originating in a failed and oppressive state seven thousand miles away could bring murder and destruction to our country. Dictatorships shelter terrorists, feed resentment and radicalism, and seek weapons of mass destruction. Democracies replace resentment with hope, respect the rights of their citizens and their neighbors, and join the fight against terror. Every step toward freedom in the world makes our country safer, and so we will act boldly in freedom’s cause.

When President Bush speaks about “misguided idealism”, he’s drawing a bead at Democrats, whose foreign policy has been rooted in realism for over 40 years. He’s saying that they’ve been reactive, not proactive and that reactionary policies won’t cut it in this war against Islamofascists. Those proactive policies are especially aimed at Iran and Syria.

It is said that prior to the attacks of September 11th, our government failed to connect the dots of the conspiracy. We now know that two of the hijackers in the United States placed telephone calls to al-Qaida operatives overseas. But we did not know about their plans until it was too late. So to prevent another attack, based on authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute, I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program to aggressively pursue the international communications of suspected al-Qaida operatives and affiliates to and from America. Previous presidents have used the same constitutional authority I have, and Federal courts have approved the use of that authority. Appropriate Members of Congress have been kept informed. This terrorist surveillance program has helped prevent terrorist attacks. It remains essential to the security of America. If there are people inside our country who are talking with al-Qaida, we want to know about it, because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again.

The reason this paragraph is so important is that President Bush told the American people that there is legal precedent for warrantless wiretaps. Democrats can yap all they want about the President abusing his powers and how Justice Alito will simply be Bush’s lapdog on the issue of presidential powers. The reality is that if Justice Alito rules that the President has those powers through the Constitution, he’ll simply be affirming what other courts have said over the past century.

The significance of the President’s argument in the SOTU is that he’s drawing a line in the sand with Democrats, essentially telling them to challenge him on this. In poll after poll, this is a winning issue for the President by a big margin.

The road of victory is the road that will take our troops home. As we make progress on the ground, and Iraqi forces increasingly take the lead, we should be able to further decrease our troop levels, but those decisions will be made by our military commanders, not by politicians in Washington, D.C.

This paragraph doesn’t sound particularly significant but it jumped out when I was watching the speech. Republicans eagerly applauded, which you’d expect, but Democrats stayed seated. The message sent was clear and unequivocal: We’re for bringing troops home, whether the generals want them home or not.

Our coalition has learned from experience in Iraq. We have adjusted our military tactics and changed our approach to reconstruction. Along the way, we have benefited from responsible criticism and counsel offered by Members of Congress of both parties. In the coming year, I will continue to reach out and seek your good advice. Yet there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success, and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy.

That’s a shot at John Murtha, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi, who’ve done nothing but second-guess the President while not presenting a viable option. In other words, they’re playing politics with national security and they don’t have a clue on how to fight this war.

Murtha’s lame-brained, dangerous scheme of cut-and-run in Iraq has been shot down fairly often and isn’t taken seriously by anyone with a whit of military common sense. In fact, soldiers who’ve returned from Iraq have chewed him out at townhall meetings at least twice. Generals in theater have also said that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about without mentioning him by name.

Kerry and Kennedy have second-guessed President Bush’s goals. While they’ve been long on criticism, they’ve been sorely lacking in terms of offering an alternative policy. That’s typical because they’re all bluster and no brains. Quite frankly, it’s sickening to have to see them in the Senate because they don’t bring anything to it other than bitterness.

Now for my favorite section:

Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security…

At this point, Hillary and other Democrats jump gleefully to their feet and applaud. Big mistake.

…yet the rising cost of entitlements is a problem that is not going away, and with every year we fail to act, the situation gets worse.

What a bunch of dipsticks. They’re proud of not fixing the nation’s most pressing problems but the President slapped them silly for being so partisan and being so opposed to solutions.

The state of the Union is strong but the state of the Democratic Party is in shambles because they’re the ‘Bitter Party’.

Cross-post at LetFreedomRing

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 1st, 2006 at 9:16 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Hillary, Iran, Iraq. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.