<p>I never watch the SOTU, no matter who is delivering it. I prefer to read it the next day. I figure it’s a speech given by a politician, everything in it has to be taken with a grain of salt.</p>
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HA HA! How nice to finally see some on the other side saying what we were derided for saying for the past two elections. None of us actually left, by the way: we stuck around to try to work to make things better, because we love our country and we believe there can someday be some good in returning visionary leaders to the upper ranks of our government.</p>
<p>Just goes to show… What goes around, comes around. Have fun wherever you decide to go. :)</p>
<p>And oh yeah, it’s spelled “botox”, everyone. (BOtulism TOXin, FYI.)</p>
<p>“Are you making an assumption here that your positions are the norm?”</p>
<p>No, what gave you that idea? I’m merely stating that it’s a shame that the only leading Dem who I admire for his/her principles is someone who I would probably not vote for because his views are not my views.</p>
<p>now I know I skipped the speech-I don’t want to hear more support for this war, but…twitching, smirking, blinking, annoying? AGGHH. From both sides of the spectrum, too. you can’t stand Bush’s voice, or can’t listen to either Clinton?
Clinton the Liar, Bush the Bumbling dummy, Kerry the Herman Munster…what are we thinking about in this country? Where is policy in all this? I feel like people are elected by middle school kids, focused on looks and if they make me feel good, agree with me on everything. Issues like global warming, terrorism, war in progress and it feels sometimes to me that it comes down to emotional reactions to a persona.</p>
<p>I read somewhere that Teddy Roosevelt would have been unelectable had he run for president today. His fist-pounding stridency and high-pitched voice would not have played at all well in the electronic media. I’m not sure why anyone in their right mind would run for high political office these days, knowing that he/she will almost certainly be raked through the mud on the most personal of levels–how they look, smirk, scowl, whether they use botox, if their dentures are slipping. … Oh, please. … By the way, I’ve heard many witty references regarding Kerry’s resemblence to Herman Munster, but what about Bush and his identical twin brother, Alfred E. Neuman?</p>
<p>“I feel like people are elected by middle school kids, focused on looks and if they make me feel good, agree with me on everything.”</p>
<p>I don’t think you give the middle school kids enough credit, especially compared with 50±year-old white males.</p>
<p>Well…there’s probably something just a bit childish about picking on political leadership’s physical appearances and gestures. But, Hilary looks just insanely horrible no matter what…so it’s impossible to ignore. </p>
<p>But I’m an equal opportunity midlde schooler in that regard. I did NOT care one bit for Bush’s focus on the “first female” - it struck me as almost insulting to Pelosi. Sort of like “LOOK! We have the very first speaker of the house and guess what - NO ***** FOLKS!!!”. Um, what about her specific accomplishments? </p>
<p>I would have liked it a LOT more if he could have referenced the historic event of the first female speaker, and then perhaps segued into some of the qualifying professional aspects of her bio. It would have made the architected face, denture issues, and constant rapid-fire blinking a lot easier on the eyes…plus, it would have been a classy thing to do.</p>
<p>very impressed with Senator Webb. Great choice by the Democratic party for the rebuttal.</p>
<p>I haven’t watch a presidential tv address since LBJ said he wasn’t going to run for re-election.</p>
<p>Didn’t bother to listen to the puppet ramble on - who really gives a cra@ anymore what he has to say? Just impatiently waiting for his, god forbid, two freaking more years to be up. And can only pray that he is replaced with someone from the other side of the fence.</p>
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<p>I agree - he perfectly stated the Democratic position of being on both sides of the fence on Iraq at the same time: they are against a “precipitous withdrawal” but at the same time for getting the troops out “in short order”. I’m sure he got that part of the speech from John (I voted for the measure before I voted against it) Kerry.</p>
<p>quote above from Funding Father:
“LTS, I agree with your assessment of the current leading Dems. The common missing ingredient in their DNA appears to be principle. Yet, those who vote for the Dems don’t appear to demand that their leaders have any guiding principles.”</p>
<p>Do you write statements like this with a straight face? Just askin’.</p>
<p>fundingfather ignores that the two measures Kerry voted for were different - the one he voted for contained funding for body armor, the one he voted against didn’t. </p>
<p>Not that Kerry is my favorite Democrat by any stretch of the imagination, but we should at least attempt to build our case for or against a particular politician based on facts.</p>
<p>Facts, schmacts.;)</p>
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<p>Well, look at their last two (actually three) nominees; also look at the leading candidate for 2008. I don’t see a lot of principled stances among any of them.</p>
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<p>:D 
(is that 10 chars yet?)</p>
<p>I agree with Founding father. Democrats are good at tossing stones, but not at articulating any plans. Cheney should have worn a hunting jacket to the event last night. Pelosi would have been squirming all night.</p>
<p>I recently posted this on another thread, and it got ignored. How about some of you Dems tell me where I’m wrong:</p>
<p>Some things that won’t go away just because you find them troubling:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>All WMDs will only get easier to make as time goes on, not harder to make.</p></li>
<li><p>Delivering WMDs will always be easier to accomplish than defending against them.</p></li>
<li><p>The spread of Islam seems to have quite a bit of momentum around the world, aided by suicidally open immigration policies in Europe and North America.</p></li>
<li><p>Get used to American soldiers dying trying to stomp out upstart regimes who hate the US and have the capability of making WMDs (which is a lot of countries now, and will only grow with time [see #1, above]).</p></li>
<li><p>WMDs provide unprecedented “leverage” by which the small powers can hassle the huge powers, so the days of a large army deterring attacks are OVER.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Add this all up, and the conclusion I come to is that if it wasn’t Iraq, it would have been someone else whom we suspected had the WMDs and a chip on their shoulder. GET USED TO IT…you can’t un-invent WMDs.</p>
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<p>But maybe they would actually have HAD WMD’s. And that makes a big difference. Our spineless leaders aside, a large percentage of Americans and people around the world suspected that the Iraq evidence was cooked up.</p>
<p>I’ve never quite understood why the Islamic country with the largest number of fundamentalists, terrorist training camps, and links to 911, currently with a significant pile of nuclear weapons (and perhaps other WMDs), and likely building new ones, and enriching uranium and producing plutonium, gets a free pass?</p>
<p>I’m talking of Pakistan, of course.</p>
<p>Because US has always supported and armed Pakistan, miffed that next-door India had business policies unfriendly to the west? But for a minute I thought you were talking about that other country that gets a pass - Saudi Arabia.</p>