Reactions to the speech also are making their way onto the Internet. Here are video commentaries from: Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C.; Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif.; Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y.; Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation
President Bush will answer that question from his perspective later tonight as he gives his final State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress. Here are a couple of preview videos, including the speech expectations of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to get you in the mood:
President Bush gives his annual State of the Union address Monday and today offered his radio audience a glimpse into the priorities he will discuss in the speech.
Those priorities are economic growth and national security. Here are excerpts of Bush’s radio address:
“You should know that while economic growth has slowed in recent months, the foundation for long-term growth remains solid. And I believe that with swift action, we can give our economy the boost it needs to continue expanding and creating new jobs for our citizens.”
“In August, Congress passed a bill that strengthened our ability to monitor terrorist communications. The problem is that Congress set this law to expire on February 1st. That is next Friday. If this law expires, it will become harder to figure out what our enemies are doing to infiltrate our country, harder for us to uncover terrorist plots, and harder to prevent attacks on the American people.”
In this week’s Democratic address, Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota emphasized efforts to boost the economy but also suggested a negative link between economic woes and national security. While praising bipartisan work by Congress and Bush to aid the economy, he also took partisan shots at Bush.
“President Bush has given us a fiscal policy that has piled up mountains of debt by insisting we fight the war in Iraq with borrowed money,” Dorgan said. “Even as his policies have escalated this unbelievable federal debt load, he continues to insist on giving more tax breaks to the super wealthy. Now, the American people know that doesn’t add up. That has to change.”
“Change” is one of the favorite buzzwords of both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates this campaign. It helps that neither an incumbent president nor a sitting vice president is seeking the White House for the first time in decades.
But former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said the current occupant of the White House, President Bush, needs to take the initiative by inspiring Congress to join him in making policy changes “right now.” Gingrich said Bush has the perfect venue — the State of the Union speech he will be delivering within days.
It’s a timely, and not at all coincidental, sales pitch for Gingrich’s new book, “Real Change: From the World That Fails to the World That Works,” which went on sale today.
John Hawkins of Right Wing News offered this take on Tuesday’s State of the Union address in the latest GOPUSA-NJ “Conservatives With Attitude” podcast: “It wasn’t too hot, too cold. It was just sort of a middle-of-the-road speech.”
The show’s co-host, Richard Ross, added, “There was nothing to rally conservatives around.”
In other words, the speech was not a defining moment for President Bush as he seeks to recover from the November election and interminably low poll numbers.
Listen to the whole podcast, which also covers the 2008 presidential election and the pledge by conservative activists not to support Republican senators who are resisting Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq.
UPDATE: Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, chastised Bush for not challenging “the most anti-family leadership in Congress that Washington has seen in over a decade” on issues like “ineffective, unethical” stem-cell research, human cloning and more federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
Perkins contrasted the hard line Bush took on defending the nation from outside, physical threats with what Perkins saw as a weak stand on defending America from internal, moral threats.
“This call to strengthen our union is inseparable from the need to strengthen the American family, the culture in which we raise our children. … That same clear and concise determination to defend the culture of America here was missing [from the State of the Union],” Perkins said. “I believe the president failed in challenging the new majority to join him in addressing core family and cultural issues — issues of faith, family and freedom that many in the new majority actually campaigned upon this last fall.
He added that “the president failed to draw a line in the sand on behalf of life” and on behalf of families who have benefited from the child tax credit that Bush expanded and the “marriage tax” penalty that he eliminated. The two tax changes are due to expire, and Perkins said Bush should have reminded lawmakers about the need to renew them.
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