by Tan Copsey
As you may have read elsewhere Washington’s annual fest of pageantry and enforced pleasantry has been and gone. State of the Union ‘07 in its wake more promises to be broken, and the spectre of an increasingly political division – not so much between Republicans and Democrats, but within the Republican party itself – some of whom suddenly have more in common with Democrats than they previously imagined.
I stayed up till 3 in the morning hoping, against better judgement that the hype of big climate related promises would somehow be backed up. As Caspar Henderson has since elucidated – this proved not to be the case. That Dubya mentioned ‘global climate change’ at all marks progress. But progress to slow to be meaningful. No war on emissions was announced – instead another war, once laughably known as being ‘on terror’, was extended, and Bush now faces serious isolation because of it. The traditional response to the State of the Union was delivered by freshly minted Dem Senator Jim ‘not Macaca dodgy books’ Webb, who actually has a son serving in Iraq. He thoroughly blasted Bush and has since been backed up by the Senate itself – which passed a resolution condemning this surge onwards towards death.
Meanwhile traditional Republican hobby horses were subjected to forced resuscitation via the dull current of familiar rhetoric. Further healthcare privatisation, social security, school vouchers, and small government, all reformed for a greatest hits tour – one that at least got a few Republicans out of their seats. This seemed the last gasp of a Presidency so tied to a failed global agenda to really re-focus itself on domestic issues. Any real legislative momentum will have to be supplied by a steamrolling Democratic Congress, an organisation opposed to much of Bush’s Domestic agenda.
So is this goodbye? One thinks there’s at least one last splutter of defiance left in this administration. The sharks may be circling but Bush has just under two years left to deploy the power he has accumulated in the executive branch. I don’t think anyone would be surprised if this was used in a last-last ditch effort to further that aforementioned failed global agenda. Oh dear.
