Before the Speech. I'm not going to watch Bush's part. It's just too painful, and nothing this man says has any credibility. I am however very interested to hear Jim Webb's response. That could be interesting. More on this after the event.
After the Speech. Well, I watched it anyway. A couple of obvious points: The war he wants to continue is going to cost up $8 billion a month, and he wants to balance the budget without raising taxes. Even if the war ends, what is the debt service going to be? I expect a lot of politically motivated b.s. in a speech like this, but at least don't insult the intelligence of Americans when slinging it. Anything that he had to say about bipartisanship, health care, climate change, or energy independence has no credibility. Or it has as much credibility as Bush's presenting himself as a compassionate conservative.
Webb was right on and was a beacon of common sense that transcends ideological posturing. I liked the way he limited the focus of his remarks to the two major issues of our time that have been the continuous focus of this blog when posting about politics: First, the aggregation of wealth in fewer hands and with it the threatened disintegration of the economic middle. Second, that the reckless, buccaneering militarism that led us into Iraq must be rejected, and other more responsible leaders must take control of our foreign policy. These two issues should be at the heart of the Democrats agenda, and they should distance themselves from the leftish cultural values issues that alienate them from most middle Americans.
It's unclear, at least to me, how that leadership can take hold of the foreign policy steering wheel in the next two years. The most they can do is thwart Bush from doing more damage, but I don't see how they can move things in a more positive direction. But it will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next couple of months.