Bush's "Unfinished Agenda"

I didn't see the State of the Union last night, but it sure read like it could have put you to sleep. Lacking any new ideas, I guess his speech writers wanted to put together a list of "Bush Greatest (mis) Hits". Just about the only thing that has seemed to "stick to the wall" is his anti-earmark rhetoric-- but it can't be a good sign if the highlight of a state of the union speech is a wonky, congressional budget issue (yawn!)

Even that rant is coming off a bit hypocritical, as the Republicans have been the biggest earmark abusers. The number of earmarks exploded under Republican leadership in the House-- when Republicans took over Congress in 1994, there were 4,000 earmarks on appropriations bills (see here and here). At the end of the 109th Congress in 2005, there were 15,000. In contrast, the current (Democratically-controlled) congress has cut earmarks in half.

I know I'm cherry-picking, but here are a couple of other misfires:

In his speech, Bush said: "Last year, the Congress passed legislation to help us [monitor terrorists' communications]. Unfortunately, the Congress set the legislation to expire on February 1. This means that if you do not act by Friday, our ability to track terrorist threats would be weakened and our citizens will be in greater danger." In fact, Kenneth L. Wainstein, assistant attorney general for national security, said in a New York Times interview this month that if the August bill was allowed to expire in 10 days, intelligence officials would still be able to continue eavesdropping on already approved targets for another year under the law.

In his speech, Bush said: "“And our Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief [in Africa] is treating 1.4 million people. . . I ask you to maintain the principles that have changed behavior and made this program a success.” In fact, the UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa has said, “There is no doubt in my mind that the crisis in Uganda is being driven by [US policies]. To impose a dogma-driven policy that is fundamentally flawed is doing damage to Africa.”