Bill Clinton's Ex-Speechwriter Grades Bush's Lackluster Final SOTU

[Judi Lynn]

Failed State
by David Kusnet
On his last trip to the plate, Bush strikes out.
Post Date Tuesday, January 29, 2008

There is very little wrong with the economy, and Congress needs to act immediately to fix it.


That was the peculiar logic of President Bush's perfunctory discussion of the nation's economic problems in last night's lackluster State of Union Address. At a time when many Americans fear losing their jobs, their health insurance, and even their homes, Bush devoted only 149 words to a discussion of the downtown and his proposals to pull the country out of it. Remarkably, not one of those words was the "u" word--unemployment--or the "s" word--stimulus--much less the dreaded "r" word--recession. Nor was there any recognition that the nation faces structural economic problems, such as persistent poverty and growing inequality, or even the cyclical problems that the Republican presidential candidates, particularly Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, have acknowledged.

Instead, Bush addressed Americans' economic anxieties with a weird point-counterpoint paragraph structure. For instance, he began by saying: "As we meet tonight, our economy is undergoing a period of uncertainty. America's added jobs for a record 52 straight months. But jobs are now growing at a slower pace. Wages are up, but so are prices for food and gas. Exports are rising, but the housing market has declined."

This was scarcely an exercise in empathy towards anxious Americans, and it certainly isn't an explanation of what is wrong with the economy. There was no mention of what caused the collapse of the housing market, how it affects American families' finances, nor how the "uncertainty" spread to the credit system generally, not only nationally but internationally as well.

Sure, I have a bias here, but compare last night's speech with the tour de force of analysis and prescription that Bill Clinton delivered to a joint session of Congress in February, 1993, shortly after he took office. Remarkably, Clinton rewrote the text that a team of speechwriters (including me) had drafted the night before and then extemporized about a quarter of the speech while addressing the Congress and the country. Seven years into his presidency, Bush, the first MBA President, still declines to deliver any explanation of economic problems other than his sloganeering that taxes are bad, regulation is bad, and globalization is good.

More:
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=fd79574e-b087-42dc-b6de-6bd343fc7875

[murielm99]

1. Yes, the point-counter point observation is

great.

Was he trying to show us that he knows there are a "few problems," that he has not been asleep about the economy and his approval ratings?

Someone here suggested that the speech was structured that way to make sure his sentences ended with obvious cues for applause. Of course they all do that. But mentioning the problems first would obscure them for some people, but make him look astute enough to recognize that things are not perfect.
:shrug:

[Demeter]

2. The Economy Needs Restructuring, Not Stimulus

We have to replace all the missing pieces destroyed by NAFTA, WTO, Reagan's union busting, multinational corporations, etc. before we can bring this puppy back to life.