Last night was the State of the Union. I watched and actually took notes on the speech, took a listen at the responses from the nation, our elected leaders and the political pundits, then slept on it to let the mix set it. Now for what I personally got out of the address:

Less taxes to stir up the economy
A lot of the cuts proposed are already scheduled to go on the books from the last great Bush tax cut; scheduled to take affect in a few years from now. George just wants to accelerate the process. Then again, there are a few proposed tweaks to the tax code that I’ve read about already, and those turned my stomach.

His last cut netted me a whole $300 and a renewed national deficit. I was against that cut then, and I’m against this one now.

Medicare and health care reforms
Reform is needed, but G.W.’s plan moves away from a national health plan and will ultimately rely on the private sector to get things to work right. Hey Bush, you know those taxes your cutting? That money could be used to give the country a semblance of a heath care plan, don’t you think? Give me health care for free and you’ll have a friend for life.

A green Bush?
The three words I thought would ever leave G.W.’s lips in succession actually came out last night: “hydrogen powered cars”. He pledges $1.2 billion in research funding towards making it a nation where children born today might never know the feeling of driving in a combustion engine car. It’s a great idea, and something I’ve been behind for years, but I pray those words weren’t just being paid lip service.

By the way, his “Healthy Forests Initiative” is a euphemism for more controlled burns to prevent massive forrest fires. While it sounds like a horrible thing to do, there is some scientific merit to the practice. I’m watching this closely.

Bush pushes his pet projects
G.W once again stumped for funding and support on both the USA Freedom Corps and his Faith Based initiative. Personally I’ve felt like the Freedom Corps is just a redundant organization that is taking away funding from other organizations that could do the same tasks. As for the Faith Based initiative? Well, I still have that whole separation of church and state hang-up to get over. As it stands now, we have our courts trying to strike the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. I guess he and I just don’t see eye to eye on this one.

More funding for drug addiction treatment
I’ve always been in favor of treatment programs and schooling kids on the dangers of drugs over the escalation of the drug war via law enforcement. Let the masses make an educated decision and help those already sick with obsession. A helping hand is better than handcuffs in this case.

Reproductive rights
G.W. wants laws on the books to ban partial birth abortions, which drew applause right down party lines. He also wants to outlaw human cloning. I’m pro choice and while I can see a need for heavy, HEAVY regulation for cloning, the outright outlawing will probably damage research that could have produced many wonders of science.

World AIDS relief
New funding to help with the AIDS eppidemic in Africa and the Carribean to the tune of $15 billion, with $10 billion of that in brand new money. Nice to see the country want to help those in more desperate need, but once again I can’t help but feel this is being done to soften world opinion on the war he’s leading up to at the end of this speech. Still, at least it’s getting done.

Terrorisim take center stage
Was it just me, or did Bush seem to take way too much pleasure from making this announcment:

“All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. Many others have met a different fate. Let’s put it this way, they are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies.”

If this is the kind of blood lust he has in his system, no wonder so many people got the chair in Texas. No way in hell to get a pardon from this man! I know the act was justified (we are at war with terrorists — that much I stand behind from what they did to our country), but cowboy diplomacy isn’t winning us any new allies and making our enemies a whole lot more resolute.

Project Bioshield calls for $6 billion to build up the a reserve of vaccines and treatments against things like anthrax, ebola, and other fun stuff in case we get nailed by that in a terrorist attack.

Bush also announced the formation of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, where F.B.I., C.I.A., Homeland Security and the Department of Defense will swap info and analyze threats. This is more or less what some were calling for when the announcement of Homeland Security was announced.

Greasing the machinery of war
George saved his best for last, digging into the situation with Iraq sometime around 9:45. He opened this can of worms rather robustly:

“In all of these efforts, however, America’s purpose is more than to follow a process; it is to achieve a result: the end of terrible threats to the civilized world. All free nations have a stake in preventing sudden and catastrophic attacks. And we’re asking them to join us. And many are doing so.

“Yet the course of this nation does not depend on the decisions of others. Whatever action is required, whenever action is necessary, I will defend the freedom and security of the American people.”

He moved onward and touched upon Iran’s situation, giving a pat on the back to Iranian dissidents for speaking out for their rights. That seemed to be thrown in simple to make sure he got the third member of his “Axis of Evil” from last year’s speech on the table.

North Korea took center stage with talk about their renewed nuclear weapons program, how they must turn away from nuclear ambitions and over their former “negotiated framework” (i.e. trade) of oil for nuclear weapons plan, claiming they developed weapons all along and failign to mention how two seperate aministrations backed away from our end of things. He wrapped it up by claiming America and the world will not be blackmailed. Read between the lines I swear I can almost here “Don’t mess with texas!” in there. More cowboy diplomacy.

Finally, Iraq revisited the center stage, where G.W. gave the American public a recap of gulf war and how the 108 U.N Inspectors were looking in a country the size of California for weapons and unaccounted materials. Some of the shopping list shown included the following:

• 25,000 liters of anthrax
• Materials sufficient to produce 38,000 liters plus of botulinum toxin
• Materials to produce 500 tons plus of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent
• 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents, of which inspectors have only found 16
• Several mobile biological weapons labs
• Significant quantities of uranium recently purchased from Africa

Bush then connects the dots and explains Sadam’s reasons why he’s doing all of this: to dominate, intimidate or attack. He then throws more wood onto the fire. The first log is hoe Sadam aids and protects terrorists, including terrorist from Al Qaeda. Next one to burn is stories of Iraqi torture techniques, with Bush proclaiming “if this is not evil, then evil haas no meaning”. He even addresses the Iraqi citizens themselves, stating that the enemy is not surrounding their country but is ruling it.

February 5th Secretary of State Powell will present this case to the U.N. Security Council, so the administration is still trying to do things through channels, but then Bush threw in this little disclaimer:

“We will consult, but let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.”

Finally things were at an end, and Bush went into the political version of the big 70′s rock finish, throwing around God’s name and saying of how proud we are of our military. Big round of applause and it was done.

Now time to soak in the reactions.

Washington Governor Gary Locke gave the Democratic response to the speech, which was written prior to the State of the Union. Basically it boiled down to “we’re stronger standing with other nations than alone”, busting on his tax relier plans to stimulate the economy, how conservation should be a bigger part of the equation, bashing alaskan oil drilling and how we should promote new technologies…like hydrogen cars maybe? Gee, I guess it’s a good thing this was written before hand….

Flipping around the news channels afterwards, the responses from the Representatives and Senators quickly fell to pushing the party agenda. I got nauseous of how many times the word “compassionate” was used by the Republicans.

Word from the Pentagon said that it could take our Mid-East invasion force until mid to late March before critical mass is reached and action could be taken. Iraq could twist that if the inspectors don’t find anything in those 60 plus extra days.

So the long and the short of it is, after all was said and done, we’re still at the same point we were yesterday, but now we at least have an idea of where the driver is trying to take us. Over the next year we’ll find out how well that trip goes.