Associated Press
BUSH: Not quite fully on the money
Wed Jan 21 17:01:31 2004
64.140.158.66

BUSH: Not quite fully on the money
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4013019/

Bush picks words carefully, but some still fell off mark
The Associated Press
Updated: 12:02 a.m. ET Jan. 21, 2004

WASHINGTON - President Bush declared that “jobs are on the rise” — literally true, but listlessly so. His report on the death of the “death tax” was a bit premature. His account of Afghanistan moving toward freedom and normalcy is challenged by some of the realities on the ground.

Bush’s State of the Union speech Tuesday night was notably cautious in comparison with the one he gave last year, when he made claims about Iraq that did not stand up.

Delivering a speech that went through more than 10 drafts over more than two months, he picked his way carefully through language on weapons of mass destruction, taxes and more. “There are not a lot of disputable claims in this speech,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

In simple terms
Yet complex realities were sometimes boiled down into simplified rhetoric.

Bush’s boast on employment comes against a backdrop of 2.3 million jobs lost during his presidency. The improving economy may have begun to turn that around, but the climb is slow: Businesses added just 1,000 new jobs last month, and the drop in unemployment to 5.7 percent was attributed to frustrated workers — almost 310,000 — who left the labor force.

In asking Congress to make his tax cuts permanent, Bush rattled off a variety of taxes that will automatically go back up unless something is done. “Unless you act, the death tax will eventually come back to life,” he said.

If listeners took that to mean that the inheritance tax was history, it is not. It is being phased out during the decade but is not in its grave yet.

Bush’s progress report on Afghanistan covered the opening of new businesses and health care centers, the return of both boys and girls to school and other steps toward building a nation “that is free and proud and fighting terror.”

It did not cover such developments as the rising U.S. casualties or the surging violence overall that has threatened to delay plans for a presidential election this summer.

Bush also cited an 11 percent drop in illegal drug use among high school students over the past two years — accurately summarizing a study by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.

But the study also found slowing declines in the use of certain drugs by eighth-graders and a slight increase in their use of inhalants. That troubles researchers who say eighth-graders are often indicative of coming drug-use trends.

Hedging his bets
Still, the speech was sprinkled with qualifying language on one topic after another.

Last year, Bush’s assertions about Iraq’s shopping for uranium in Africa turned out to be wrong, and other statements in support of going to war were questionable.

White House officials emphasized that the speech Tuesday was carefully vetted for accuracy. “I can assure you that it’ll all be fact-checked just right,” Communications Director Dan Bartlett said.

Only time can tell whether Bush’s promises in the speech will be kept. But the context in which he made them Tuesday was missing on occasion.

For example, he thanked troops and the families for their service and said: “And my administration, and this Congress, will give you the resources you need to fight and win the war on terror.”

To date, troops have lacked some key resources. The Defense Department has struggled with delays in the production and distribution of the latest body armor to troops in Iraq, among other supply problems.

Troops reuniting with their families have had to pay for their own airfare home and other travel costs once they are flown free to a small selection of cities while on leave. The government has been working on a plan to pick up more of the costs.
© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Poor Sean Hannity

Sean Hannity, a radio talk-show host and Fox News whiner, has a one-rut mind. Every criticism or dissent, no matter what the subject, the topic or the source, is a left-wing attack against his hero, George W. Bush.

Well, what can you expect from an immature groupie? Every time he tries to think, his face reflects the pain of the effort. But he really showed his emptiness recently when he said that criticism of the United States failing to guard the Iraqi National Museum was — you guessed it — just left-wing soreheads who are mad that President Bush's war has been so successful.

Give me a break. That museum is one of the five greatest museums on Earth. It contained treasures that are the heritage of mankind. There are 140,000 U.S. military personnel in Iraq. We've protected all the oil fields, north and south. Do you really believe we couldn't have spared two fire teams to guard the irreplaceable artifacts of the beginnings of Western civilization? Of course we could have. Somebody just goofed.

This is not a left/right, liberal/conservative issue. It's not a question of patriots versus traitors, as the morons among the neoconservative crowd try to paint every human being who refuses to click his heels and salute their guru, Richard Perle, and their emperor, George Bush. This is a cultural issue. Three great treasures — the museum, the National Library and the largest collection of Koranic writings in the world — were looted and burned. Since we had destroyed the Iraqi government, it was our responsibility to protect them.

I don't blame President Bush. I'm sure he's unaware of their existence. After all, he brags about not reading. But what would we say if the crowds who have rioted in Washington in the past had been allowed to loot and burn the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress? Do you think we would have accepted an excuse that there weren't enough cops to protect those two treasures?

One hates to disillusion the permanently adolescent among us, but this tiny sliver of life in which we are participating is a dot on a long line of human civilization. One day, we will be as forgotten as the Assyrians, and hopefully some museum will have artifacts from our brief stay on the stage of history.

There is a definitely a whiff of anti-intellectualism — so characteristic of fascist states — in the air. Beware of bully boys who worship the military and scoff at museums and libraries. Beware of people whose limited brains see everyone as either an ally or an enemy. Beware of people who can't tell the difference between patriotism and military conquest. Beware of people so stupid and ignorant that they accept anything and everything the political and the media demagogues tell them.

Thomas Jefferson, who would have been outraged by the loss of the museum and the library, said, "Those who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was and never will be." Amen cubed.

I'm no longer concerned about liberals or conservatives, leftists or rightists. I just pray to God for a non-ideologue with a three-digit IQ. If we don't elevate the level of intelligence and integrity of our government, we are going to end up floating on the cesspool of history.

As for anyone being disappointed that the war was conducted rapidly and successfully, that's bull. I was opposed to the war, but I'm damned glad it was quick and there were as few casualties as there have been. Every anti-war person I know of or have read feels the same way. You have to be a really sick puppy to imagine that anyone would want to see Americans die just because they disagree with the policy that put them in harm's way. Let me spell it out for the mentally impaired: People are anti-war because they do not wish to see anyone die — our soldiers, their soldiers, our civilians or their civilians. Anti-war is pro-life.

© 2003 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
http://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20030423/index.php 

• Sean Hannity, the Hard-hearted Hypocrite — RESEARCHER, Wed Jan 21 17:14