The State of Our Union

Terry reminds me that I had some comments on the State of the Union address from last night. Now I admit to being a strong supporter of the president. He's not perfect, but I think he's handled his responsibilities well and I'm glad he's our president. I'm not certain if my reactions to the speech last night are because of my support, and how much were because it was a good speech.

I think overall it was a good speech, and I thought the president was forceful, well spoken, and completely believed what he was saying. Some lines that resonated with me:

"The principle here is clear: taxpayer dollars must be spent wisely, or not at all. "

I believe he has it exactly right - I'd just like to know that he's planning on following through. Let's cut everything, and we can all stop sucking at the the government trough. I don't believe it's government's responsibility to run everything, and maybe we don't actually need most of what's out there.

"Four years of debate is enough — I urge Congress to pass legislation that makes America more secure and less dependent on foreign energy. "

I'm not so in tune with a lot of what the President said in this passage, but the "four years is enough" line resonated with me. I took as him telling congress to get up off it's fat behind and do things instead of yammering all the time.

"Because a society is measured by how it treats the weak and vulnerable, we must strive to build a culture of life. "

A shot across the bow of the Abortion lobby, near as I can tell. I'm just glad to hear him articulate "culture of life" as a goal.

"The Constitution also gives the Senate a responsibility: Every judicial nominee deserves an up-or-down vote."

Amen, brother. I'm sick of my state's senior senator standing in the way of nominations because he can. You're either fer 'em or agin 'em - let's cut the filibuster crap, okay?

"And because democracies respect their own people and their neighbors, the advance of freedom will lead to peace. "

Here's the Bush Doctrine laid out for all to see. Freedom=Peace, and bringing freedom to people is what America should be about.

There were things I didn't care for - the nods to the left about HIV, ethanol, additional social programs, whatever. On the whole I thought it was a conservative (politically) speech, and it rang notes I wanted to hear.