A Defiant Look at What Little Lies Ahead

By STEVEN LEE MYERS

WASHINGTON — Making his seventh and final State of the Union address, President Bush proposed a short list of initiatives Monday that more than anything else underscored the White House’s growing realization that his biggest political opponents now are time and an electorate already looking beyond him.

This address lacked the soaring ambitions of Mr. Bush’s previous speeches, though it had its rhetorical flourishes. He invoked the “miracle of America” but for the most part flatly recited familiar ideas — cutting taxes, fighting terrorists, the war in Iraq — rather than bold new ones. Nothing he proposed Monday is likely to redefine how history judges his presidency...

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Mr. Bush’s approval rating hovers at 29 percent, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. It has fallen with each State of the Union message since his first, delivered after Sept. 11, 2001, when Al Qaeda had been routed with the Taliban in Afghanistan and 82 percent approved of his handling of the job. Afghanistan, too, appeared to remain unfinished business; Mr. Bush noted the recent decision to send 3,200 Marines to bolster the American-led coalition against a resurgent Taliban.

And though he declared that the state of the union would remain strong, as tradition obliges presidents to do, only 19 percent of Americans think the country is generally on the right track, as low a number as any recorded...[Open in new window]

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He'll be forever remembered as the clown president, the moronic boob manipulated by war-profiteers, corporate welfare 'queens' & Israeli double-agents.

People who supported him should feel ashamed. It was all easy to see all along.

I don't think he legitimately won either election, but because enough idiots were fooled they were close enough to be stolen through the time honored tradition of Republican dirty tricks.

What a mess we're in now.

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