The State of the Union

I am still mulling over President Bush's State of the Union Address delivered last night.



Predictably, it was a slightly more centrist approach, with concessions to global warming (termed "global climate change" by the president because of course he wants to avoid the term commonly used by reasonable scientists for the past 30 years), and ideas for health care, etc.

Predictably, he pushed his Iraq policy, and said the state of the union was strong.

In the final analysis, though, regardless of the accolades of concessions and a spirit of cooperation by the conservative pundits, the president appeared to not to have gotten the message that the last election sent.

President Bush is enjoying the lowest approval rating ever, close only to Harry Truman, and Richard Nixon during the Watergate hearings. Now, low approval ratings and unpopular decisions aren't necessarily a reason to change policy. Lincoln, for instance, made some pretty unpopular-at-the-time decisions, but stuck by his plan.

However, this is different in a big way -- that was a civil war at home, which the government didn't begin; just defended against. The Iraq War may be a civil war, but not between Americans, and it was started by us. And not only was it started by us, but it was botched frm the beginning, when Bush, even then, chose to ignore the advice of the experts. Lincoln listened to his experts. And the Union Army was fighting an enemy it understood, and outnumbered. The Iraq War is the first war since the Revolution that the States initiated.

With the surprising strategy of Scooter Libby's lawyers to portray him as a fall guy for Karl Rove, and claim that Rove and Cheney knew all about it and engineered the leak, things are not looking good for the president. This man digs his heels in and refuses to budge, in the name of his convictions. But if he is going to save his political behind, perhaps he needs to pay attention to his "empire" crumbling around him.

Last night was a start, but I remain skeptical. Skeptical that the president will compromise. Skeptical that the Democrats will take the high road and avoid the temptation to take revenge like the Republicans did against Clinton. It certainly would be nice if, after six years of little besides self-reward and corruption, this was a group of people who worked hard and did some good for the country.

The state of the union may be strong, but it will only stay strong as long as democracy is able to exercise.

It's the right time for Hillary

I awoke this morning to dh saying, "Hillary Clinton is running for president."

It is about time. We need Hillary Clinton in the White House.

Not because she is Bill Clinton's wife. But because she is an intelligent, articulate statesman with international credibility who has the unique, intimate perspective of what life is like as president. That is critical if we are going to re-establish our nation's international credibility.

And not because she is a woman, although it is exciting that we have a woman candidate who has such strong qualifications. And because, in many ways, she is much more the real face of America than we have seen in a long time.

She is a woman from a Midwestern, middle class family who went to one of the top schools in the country because she wanted to be a lawyer. She was a Goldwater Republican who became a southern Democrat. With the centrist sensibility present in our society today, she is all that.

She has already survived the intense scrutiny of federal prosecutors and unprecendented attacks to her character by a partisan Congress while First Lady. She has had her private life played out in the press, and has faced down political skepticism about her suitability as a Senate candidate. Not many of us have faced that, but how would our lives look if they were played out in the press?

She has been a working mother who has worked hard to balance work and family. While the myth of the one-income household with the father earning the money and the mother staying home to care for the household and the school-age children, that is not the reality. The face of the American woman is more likely single, often a single parent, and a lower-class to middle-class income. We think we want Cinderella for the First Lady, but we are really more like Belle.

Hillary Clinton has what it takes to be president.