SOTU IMPRESSIONS
the TomPaine.com scorecard version
part two

(for each of these, the choices were "Acknowledged", "Ignored", or "Spun")

Let's see how Fearless Leader did...

Health Care: 44 million Americans, 15 percent of population, including 8.5 million children, don’t have health insurance.

Verdict: Ignored. He used the word "millions" at one point to describe the reach of one of his healthcare proposals, but it was such a passing and superficial reference that his treatment does not gain stature above simply ignoring.

Jobs & Economic Recovery: Two million fewer jobs than when Bush took office. Tax cuts that were supposed to create 300,000 new jobs a month never reached one-third of that goal. In December 2003, only 1,000 new jobs were created. New jobs pay less than those lost. Last year, household debt increased at highest rate in 15 years.

Verdict: Spun. "The job market is rising," said Whistle Ass, to thunderous applause from the rightward half of the chamber. Yeah, jobs went up in December... by 1,000. When they were hoping for 130,000. When they would need over 200,000 jobs added monthly to not end the first term of the administration with a net job loss.

Funding Education: No Child Left Behind law $7 billion short. Publicschools laying off teachers, closing schools and shortening academic year.

Verdict: Ignored. He addressed the heck out of the "tests" and "standards" portion of NCLB, but failed to mention that he was grossly underfunding it in his budgets. And Grover Norquist chortled.

Environment: Landmark environmental laws weakened. Allowable levels of mercury from power plants tripled. Superfund clean-up costs shifted from polluters to public. Clean Air Act rules for dirtiest power plants relaxed.

Verdict: Ignored. Unless you count the shift in Superfund burden as part of his "ownership society". But hey, he did call for a crackdown on performance-enhancing steroids! (yet he supported Schwarzenegger...)

State & Federal Spending: States face largest budget crises indecades. Federal deficit has hit a new high. $166 billion spent on Iraq as U.S. non-defense domestic spending plummeted. IMF warns that U.S. debt and trade imbalance threaten global economic stability.

Verdict: Ignored/Spun. TomPaine just said a mouthful, so in addressing everything, Bush gets two scores here. He acknowledged the presence of deficits by saying the word "deficits", and by saying that by limiting discretionary spending to 4%, those deficits can be decreased by 50% in five years. Riiight. Well, if that doesn't work, making those tax cuts permanent will, right? Oy. Everything else he ignored.

War on Terror: No WMD found. No link between Iraq and Al Qaeda found. Osama bin Laden still at large. Iraq reconstruction marred by terrorism, corporate profiteering and failure to restore basic services.

Verdict: Spun, with a side of Ignored. Not a word about Bin Laden (that's two straight SOTU's!). WMD became "weapons of mass destruction related program activities", despite the laundry list of charges Bush made in last year's SOTU. Bush probably thinks he doesn't have to make the Iraq/AlQaeda link anymore, because we've created new terrorists in Iraq, and that's all we need! And of "terrorism, corporate profiteering, and failure to restore basic services", Fearless Leader gets a score of 1 out of 3. Not bad in baseball. Not good for a president.

Other observations from tonight's speech: Actually, I think the reaction shots of Teddy really summed it up for me.