2007 State of the State Address

In just an hour, President Bush will be giving the first State of the Union Address before a Democrat majority Congress. We've been told by the polls that the state of the economy is bad, that people don't like the direction of the country, and they don't like what they see in Iraq.

What will President Bush do in the face of all this negativity?

What would you do in the face of all this negativity?

Would you show the media elites have it wrong - that the state of the state isn't grim at all. Would you show that the economy is strong - that unemployment is near historic lows, that growth is steady, that inflation is low, and that wages are increasing?

Would you note that there have not been terrorist attacks on US soil or would that be tempting fate? Would you note that there have been hardships and setbacks in the war on terror and in Iraq but that should not deter from seeing the mission through to victory?

Would you focus your energy on domestic programs like health care and improving gas mileage or would you stick to the issue of Iraq? Will you throw a bone to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or realize that this isn't the time or place to mention the fact that the Palestinians have no interest in peace and unless they change that basic fact, there's no reason to continue with diplomacy that undermines one of our staunchest allies in the Middle East.

Will you mention Somalia and the threat posed by failed states around the world?

Will you take your political opponents to task for turning the war on terror into a partisan political free-for-all (see Jules Crittenden), or will you lay out a modest and meek agenda?

What would you do?

I know what Dr. Sanity would do. I know what Blackfive would say.

I know that attacking the President for being articulate or claiming that he lied to get us into Iraq is grounds for impeachment and all that jazz is irrelevant. You want to disagree with policy, that's fine - but a disagreement is not grounds for impeachment. More to the point, there are Islamist extremists who seek to reprise the WTC attacks on America, our allies, and anyone else who stands in their way.

They operate in Iraq. They operate in Afghanistan. They operate in Europe. And thinking that withdrawing from Iraq will solve matters is not only shortsighted, but a massive failure of rational thought. Leaving Iraq now would be cataclysmic and leave the door open to the Islamists to use it as a base of operations against the US going forward. That doesn't sound like something we can or should live with.

It also doesn't sound like victory. It also doesn't sound like a strategy to win by saying you're going to withdraw from the field of battle where the Islamists are being killed to redeploy to some far off place like Okinawa leaving those Islamists to their own devices.

I don't want to hear a strategy of redeployment. I want a strategy for victory. Democrats want victory, don't they? Show it by saying what you would do that will produce victory.

UPDATE:
Compare and contrast time.

The President's speech. The Democrat rebuttal.

The key grafs are from the President's speech:

Our success in this war is often measured by the things that did not happen. We cannot know the full extent of the attacks that we and our allies have prevented – but here is some of what we do know: We stopped an al Qaeda plot to fly a hijacked airplane into the tallest building on the West Coast. We broke up a Southeast Asian terrorist cell grooming operatives for attacks inside the United States. We uncovered an al Qaeda cell developing anthrax to be used in attacks against America. And just last August, British authorities uncovered a plot to blow up passenger planes bound for America over the Atlantic Ocean. For each life saved, we owe a debt of gratitude to the brave public servants who devote their lives to finding the terrorists and stopping them.

Every success against the terrorists is a reminder of the shoreless ambitions of this enemy. The evil that inspired and rejoiced in Nine-Eleven is still at work in the world. And so long as that is the case, America is still a Nation at war.

In the minds of the terrorists, this war began well before September 11th, and will not end until their radical vision is fulfilled. And these past five years have given us a much clearer view of the nature of this enemy. Al Qaeda and its followers are Sunni extremists, possessed by hatred and commanded by a harsh and narrow ideology. Take almost any principle of civilization, and their goal is the opposite. They preach with threats ... instruct with bullets and bombs ... and promise paradise for the murder of the innocent.

Our enemies are quite explicit about their intentions. They want to overthrow moderate governments, and establish safe havens from which to plan and carry out new attacks on our country. By killing and terrorizing Americans, they want to force our country to retreat from the world and abandon the cause of liberty. They would then be free to impose their will and spread their totalitarian ideology. Listen to this warning from the late terrorist Zarqawi: “We will sacrifice our blood and bodies to put an end to your dreams, and what is coming is even worse.” And Osama bin Laden declared: “Death is better than living on this Earth with the unbelievers among us.”

These men are not given to idle words, and they are just one camp in the Islamist radical movement. In recent times, it has also become clear that we face an escalating danger from Shia extremists who are just as hostile to America, and are also determined to dominate the Middle East. Many are known to take direction from the regime in Iran, which is funding and arming terrorists like Hezbollah – a group second only to al Qaeda in the American lives it has taken.

The Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat.

Why did it take this long to lay this out for the world?

UPDATE:
Of course, I mean the State of the Union address. Corrected above.

UPDATE:
The President's demeanor changed considerably once he started mentioning the folks who make a difference here in the US and around the world. He seemed more relaxed and happy to be talking about people, instead of policy and issues on war.

And for Wesley Autrey, what a moment. Not only did he get a shout out from the President of the United States of America, but a standing ovation from Congress. For those who aren't aware of what he did - he jumped in front of a NYC subway car to save someone from surely being killed by that train. He is an honest to goodness hero, though he points to the men and women in uniform around the world being the true heroes.