The State of the Union: A Quadruple Play

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CXXXVII

Four articles of interest in the aftermath of SOTU 2004.

First up, MoDo in The New York Times, Jan. 22.

Whoa! That was quite the steroid-infused performance. Who's the guy's political consultant — Russell Crowe? He was so in-your-face, smirking his trademark smirk, it was disturbing to think of him in charge of the military. It's a good thing he stopped drinking and started talking about God.

You wonder how many votes he scared off with that testosterone festival: the taunting message, the self-righteous geographic litany of support? The Philippines. Thailand. Italy. Spain. Poland. Denmark. Bulgaria. Ukraine. Romania. The Netherlands. Norway. El Salvador.

Can you believe President Bush is still pushing the cockamamie claim that we went to war in Iraq with a real coalition rather than a gaggle of poodles and lackeys?

His State of the Union address took his swaggering sheriff routine to new heights. "America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country," he vowed.

Translation: Hey, we don't need no stinking piece of paper to bring it on in other countries. If it feels good, we'll do it, and we'll decide later why we did it. You lookin' at me?

Sure, Howard Dean was also over the top when he uttered the squeal heard round the world. With one guttural primary primal scream, he went from Internet deity to World Wide Wacko and remix victim, with the scream mixed in on Web sites to punctuate Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train."

Yes, Howard, you know you're in trouble when Chris Matthews says you make him look like Jim Lehrer; when David Letterman compares you to a hockey dad; when The New York Post suggests you have a "God complex." (As Alec Baldwin's twisted doctor said in "Malice": "You ask me if I have a God complex? Let me tell you something. I am God.")

Once Michael Dukakis got in trouble when he failed to get angry when asked how he would react if his wife were raped and murdered.

But Dr. Dean's snarly, teeth-baring Iowa finale was so Ross-Perot-scare-off-the-women-and-horses crazy that some Democrats on Capitol Hill, already anxious about the tightly wound doctor, confessed they could not imagine that jabbing finger anywhere near The Button.

But Republicans were thrilled when Mr. Bush strutted up onstage on Tuesday night to basically tell the country that if you don't vote for him in November, you're giving up in the war on terrorism. "We've not come all this way — through tragedy, and trial and war — only to falter and leave our work unfinished," he asserted, as if all those Democrats racing from Iowa to New Hampshire in the middle of the night were crying out to the voters: "Falter! Falter!"

Dr. Dean's poll numbers are diving because people freezing in New Hampshire think he's too hot.

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are better at looking cool. But their dissing the U.N. — that palace of permission slips — and their doctrine of pre-emption are just as hot, and so was Mr. Bush's cocky implicit defense of the idea that if you whack one Middle East dictator, the rest will fall in line. "Nine months of intense negotiations involving the United States and Great Britain succeeded with Libya, while 12 years of diplomacy with Iraq did not," he said. "For diplomacy to be effective, words must be credible, and no one can now doubt the word of America."

Maybe he's right, but what about Bill Clinton's line that unless we want to occupy every country in the world, maybe our policy should also concentrate on making friends instead of targets? The president and vice president like to present a calm, experienced demeanor, but their foreign policy is right out of the let's-out-crazy-the-bad-guys style of Mel Gibson's cop in "Lethal Weapon" movies.

For proof of how intemperate their policy has been, compare this year's State of the Union with last year's. Last year it was all about Iraq's frightening weapons. This year the only reference was to "dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations."

Would Americans have supported a war to go get "program activities?" What is a program activity? Where is the White House speechwriters' ombudsman?

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Translation: Damn! He made Clinton look so wimpy!

Next, Lloyd Grove writes, in the New York Daily News, Jan. 22, about "A State of the Union bash" in Manhattan (embedded ellipsis in original):

Lauren Hutton and Georgette Mosbacher squared off in a verbal claw-fest Tuesday night at the Sony Club, significantly upping the entertainment value of a State of the Union-watching party hosted by Atlantic Monthly magazine. "Bush is responsible for a trillion-dollar deficit," declared the gap-toothed fashion icon, rising from her seat to respond to Mosbacher's lonely defense of President Bush amid a liberal-leaning crowd that included Walter and Betsy Cronkite, Pete Peterson, David Dinkins, Tina Brown and Harry Evans, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld and Moby.

"I guess you can't read, or something," Hutton jabbed. "Because I can - and I'm a model, for God's sake!"

At which the flame-haired Mosbacher went ballistic.

"Don't you be personally insulting!" she fired back. "You can make your points, but I resent your personal insults."

"How's that insulting?" the 60-year-old Hutton demanded.

"It's insulting to you!" replied the 57-year-old ex-wife of former Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher.

"Ohhhh, catfight!" one of my tablemates exclaimed.

"I felt like I was in the lion's den," Mosbacher told me yesterday.

The trouble started when "the cream of Manhattan society" and "godless Manhattanites" - as moderator James Fallows (perhaps ironically) addressed the group - were invited to critique Bush's speech after watching it, over a sumptuous sushi-laced dinner, on flat-screen televisions on the 35th floor of the Sony Building.

Cronkite, the venerable former CBS anchorman, launched his assessment by noting portentously: "I have watched a great many of these speeches in my life, and I would say that President Bush's is unique in American history."

The majestic-voiced Cronkite looked grave as he continued: "Never before has a President of the United States taken such a strong stand - as he did tonight - against gonorrhea!"

It was a laugh line, of course, and the room erupted in laughter.

Before the speech, guests were encouraged to use personal electronic devices at each place setting to punch in answers to various questions. Almost 77% said they will support a Democrat for President this year, and 72% reported that they attend "zero" religious services.

During Bush's speech, Moby strolled up to one of the screens, tuned to CNN and stuck a piece of dark tape over the letter "V" in "LIVE." Now it read "LIE," prompting one guest to quip: "I didn't know that Moby cared so much about the Long Island Expressway!"

He doesn't. "We all have 'beaten-wife syndrome,' where we've been lied to so often," he told fellow diner Curtis Ellis of AP Radio. "George Bush is like a drunken, unfaithful spouse who's gone out and cheated on us so many times that at this point we just accept it.... He looks like the belligerent guy in the bar who tries to pick a fight with you."

I thought that was Eminem....

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I'm already looking forward to the report of their Election Night bash. :-)

Next, two "critics" look at the speech. First up, somebody named Tom Shales in WaPo, Jan. 21.

We like a confident president, but we don't like a cocky president, and George W. Bush had too many moments of cockiness last night as he delivered his third State of the Union address to both houses of Congress and the viewing nation. Often the words of the speech were written to sound lofty, but Bush had such a big Christmas-morning grin on his face that they came out sounding like taunts -- taunts to the rest of the world or taunts to Democrats in the hall.

The dividing line between the parties has rarely appeared so graphic. Republicans on one side of the House chamber couldn't scramble to their feet fast enough to give Bush his obligatory standing ovations. He probably would have gotten one if he'd sneezed. Democrats, meanwhile, sat their ground. They rose for some of Bush's sentiments, as when praising America's military forces, but they weren't on their feet when Bush called for making last year's tax cuts permanent.

And the split was even more dramatic when Bush called for renewing his controversial Patriot Act, a piece of emergency legislation that has had the effect of trampling civil rights into mush. In fact, Bush got applause he didn't want when he introduced the subject by saying certain provisions of the Patriot Act would end next year. Yes, some people, presumably Democrats, heartily applauded that.

The speech was pretty much so-so, and Bush's gung-ho delivery -- something approaching the forced jollity of a game show host -- lacked dignity and certainly lacked graciousness. Bush has never been big on those things anyway.

Dan Rather of CBS News, who sometimes goes out of his way not to upset the Bush people -- since they are all ready to pounce on him for what they perceive (or claim to perceive) as a bias against their exalted glorious potentate -- said afterward that Bush's was "a strong speech, strongly delivered." It was one of the few times Rather sounded less than astute.

Over on the Fox News Channel, Fred Barnes, sounding as if he had walking pneumonia, allowed as how he'd heard George W. Bush deliver many an important and eloquent speech over the years, "and this was not one of them." It takes courage to say something like that on the Fox News Channel, normally a Bush cheering section. Someone noted that Bush is considered a master of the half-hour speech and State of the Union 2004 had dragged on for twice that length.

Actually, CNN's Wolf Blitzer, before the speech began, quoted sources as saying it was a 40-minute speech if no one interrupted it for applause (fat chance of that) and 60 minutes if Bush got the usual perfunctory but time-killing cheers and claps. Bush started speaking at 9:11 p.m. and said his customary "May God continue to bless America" at 10:05. He's getting into Clintonian territory, and are there any Americans who want to go back to those marathon speeches Clinton used to give, regardless of how they feel about his presidency and his policies and his pigs-in-a-poke?

The best reaction shots were those of Ted Kennedy, whose stature seems to grow right along with his nose year after year after year. Kennedy has now reached a grand moment in the life of a senator; he looks like Hollywood itself cast him in the role. Seriously. With that waving mane of bright white hair, he evokes memories of Claude Rains looking distinguished as all get-out in Frank Capra's once- controversial, now-classic movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." Never mind that the senator played by Rains had some shady dealings in his repertoire.

Kennedy looked great, like he was ready to take his place next to Jefferson on Mount Rushmore. He gives off the kind of venerable vibes that some of us got from an Everett Dirksen way back when, or a Charles Laughton -- oh wait, Laughton was a make-believe senator, too (in "Advise and Consent").

Bush's speech was on the perfunctory side with the by-now- predictable list of oratorical ingredients. There has to be a guest star in the audience, a tradition begun grandly by the great communicator Ronald Reagan. And so Bush had, among others in the audience, representatives of U.S. troops plus Adnan Pachachi, president of the Iraqi Governing Council, who got that prime gallery seat right next to Laura Bush, who was looking slightly hypnotized as usual.

Among other things proved by the U.S. incursion into Iraq and the capture of Saddam Hussein in his spider-hole, Bush said, was that "No one can ever doubt the word of America," a platitude for which he was rewarded with yet another standing ovation.

CNN looked smart before the speech by spreading its anchors around to the most recognizable spots in the capital: Paula Zahn had the U.S. Capitol over one shoulder; Blitzer lucked out by being stationed indoors, in Statuary Hall; and Aaron Brown was perched so that the White House was in the shot behind him.

Anderson Cooper did his "360" show from George Washington University and so was not directly involved in the speech coverage.

Tom Brokaw of NBC News and Peter Jennings of ABC News were both on duty.

One of the bigger surprises of the night was instantly evident, even as Bush made his tedious way down an aisle before delivering the speech. Though he's favored blue ties (sometimes baby blue) throughout his presidency, Bush wore a red necktie last night. Could this signify a change in terrorism alert status? Or maybe just the fact that Bush is now in full ramming mode, not merely a president but a politician again, up to his collar in the rigors of an election year?

It was obviously the latter, and the fact that Bush appeared to be so happy, so elated, so giddily primed for another political slugfest was a little bit disheartening, and even a little bit scary.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

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Here's a clue for Shales: lots of people actually have televisions these days, and lots of them actually watched this year's SOTU in which anybody with eyes could see Ted Kennedy behaving like a spoiled, peevish brat who had to sit still for his father's lecture without being able to say anything back.

Finally, somebody named Alessandra Stanley in NYT, Jan. 21.

Any president delivering a State of the Union address in an election year is a little like a newly minted divorcé — suddenly vulnerable to comparative appraisal.

Television viewers who had spent the previous 24 hours being bombarded with images of the Democratic winners of the Iowa caucus had a chance on Tuesday night to compare those faces with that of their rival, President Bush. The president spoke live for just under an hour, a performance that was calculated to upstage his opponents but that also brought him down into their turf.

The yearly ritual always begins with the president striding into the chamber, shaking hands, slapping backs and nodding at familiar faces. This year, Mr. Bush also stopped to hug the 3-year-old daughter of Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr. of Illinois dressed in a tartan party dress and beribboned cornrows, adding a classic campaign trail move to the the pomp and pageantry.

The State of the Union address turned out to be a more suspense-filled television event than the White House had anticipated when it scheduled the speech for right after the Iowa caucus. At the time of that decision, Howard Dean seemed the most probable winner, and his volatility could have been used as a foil to show off Mr. Bush's experience and steadiness and reserve.

Instead, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a decorated Vietnam veteran, came in first, followed by Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, an articulate Southern populist. And, adding to the pressure, a New York Times/CBS Poll taken last week showed that when given a choice between an unnamed Democrat and Mr. Bush, 43 percent of the registered voters polled said they would vote for Mr. Bush, while 45 percent said they would vote for the Democrat.

Mr. Bush still does not enjoy delivering impromptu public remarks, but he has mastered the art of teleprompter reading. Looking confident, and more comfortable at a podium than usual, Mr. Bush used much of his time to rebut his Democratic opponents' most pressing attack points, like the war in Iraq, tax cuts and the economy. And he pushed hard with what Republicans say is his strongest suit, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"I know that some people question if America is really in a war at all," Mr. Bush noted before asserting that "after the chaos and carnage of September 11th, it is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers."

Perhaps mindful of his father's failure to focus quickly enough on domestic affairs after his Iraq war, Mr. Bush also gave a preview of his major domestic campaign points, including the issue of gay marriage.

"Activist judges, however, have begun redefining marriage by court order, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives," he said, referring to the recent decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Court.

The president defended the tougher testing provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act by saying, "This nation will not go back to the days of simply shuffling children along from grade to grade without them learning the basics." (He made his point: his speechwriters seemingly did not learn the rule that the possessive precedes a gerund; the president should have said "without their learning the basics.")

The sense that Mr. Bush was engaging in a political debate with his Democratic opponents was sharpest on NBC, which put Mr. Kerry on the air, live from New Hampshire, as soon as Mr. Bush had finished his speech and before the designated Democratic rebutters, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, and Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the party's leader in the Senate.

Mr. Kerry, the Democratic front-runner of the hour, said he thought Mr. Bush's optimism about the war in Iraq was "wishful" thinking.

Babies are a part of political campaigns, and so are sports. Among the servicemen and women Mr. Bush invited as his guests on Tuesday night was Tom Brady, quarterback for the New England Patriots, the football team from Mr. Kerry's home state. But it could have been that Mr. Bush invited him to set a good example for his campaign against the use of performance-enhancing drugs in professional sports. This prompted Jon Stewart, host of the "Daily Show with Jon Stewart," on Comedy Central to comment on NBC that he wished the president had been a bit bolder and had spoken out against "the instant replay and artificial turf."

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Stanley ought to stick to "criticizing" TV instead of grammar:

This construction, in which a noun or pronoun modifies a gerund (I don’t like his driving so fast, rather than I don’t like him driving so fast, or They felt that Mary’s coming in late was bad, rather than They felt that Mary coming in late was bad) was long required in English classes. But for some time now either the genitive (possessive) or the objective case has also been Standard before gerunds, although Formal writing may use a bit more genitive with pronouns than it does with nouns. Native speakers can now trust their ears.

Get with it, Alessandra!

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 01/25/04 04:21:27 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Media & Political.