As I sat there watching The State of The Union last night... I puked a little in my mouth many times. Despite the horror on the television, I still was able to laugh at what a dumb fuck our President is. Now a rant...

"A more hopeful nation"... Bush says:

"Yet many Americans, especially parents still have deep concerns about the direction of our culture and the health of our most basic institutions. They're concerned about unethical conduct by our elected officials and discouraged by activist courts that try to redefine marriage. They worry about children in our society who need direction and love. And about fellow citizens still displaced by natural disasters and about suffering caused by treatable diseases."

OK. First of all Mr. President, your calculations on what the nation and "especially parents" are truly concerned about are pretty off. How about the failing education system you have created? How about a strong job market for when these kids graduate? What about healthcare prices or lack of healthcare for millions and millions of Americans--and livable wages, Mr. President? I have a good feeling that gay marriage is not issue #1 for people in this country.

As far as elected officials and their unethical conduct - you may want to speak with your party about that. Then Mr. President have a serious look at your own administrations conduct. Wiretapping all international calls coming in and going out of America is quite ridiculous and this leaves me to disagree with you that you are creating a "more hopeful nation". It's a nation out of control.

Mr. President, you also mention "suffering caused by treatable diseases". I would say that HIV/AIDS falls into this category. We cannot cure it at this point - yet it can be treated so that people can live much, much longer lives. So why Mr. President are you handing out 25% of your $15 billion effort to fight AIDS to religious groups, and aggressively pursuing new church partners that often emphasize disease prevention through abstinence and leave out the part about condom use - while "sharing the good news of Christ"? So how much $$ is going to 'sharing good news' and how much is going to actually preventing this disease?

Abstinence only programs do not work. We've seen the results - or lack of results already. An Epidemic Failure.

Tim McFeely, President of the Center for Policy Alternatives, had some smart things to say on the Bush's speech:

"In his meandering, theme-less State of the Union Address last night, near the conclusion Bush declared:
They [the American people] are concerned about unethical conduct by public officials and discouraged by activist courts that try to redefine marriage.

In 8 seconds, the president dismissed the corruption scandals gripping Congress and his Administration and equated these in the American mind with judges who have applied state constitutional precepts on equality to lesbian and gay couples. The reaction? Applause from both sides of the proverbial aisle - Democrats want to underscore the unethical conduct reference and Republicans want to take another swing at scapegoating homosexuals for the moral decline of America.

It's yet another example of the way conservative wordsmiths "frame" and mischaracterize events and issues. This simple sentence conjoins public officials who pervert their duties by accepting bribes from the Abramoff crowd with state judges who see unlawful discrimination in denying marriage rights to same-sex couples. Corrupt congressmen and courageous jurists are framed in the same photo and filed under "bad characters" that Americans don't like. Instead of seeing the real photo of Abramoff gripping Bush, we get a contrived portrait of Randy Cunningham hugging Margaret Marshall (now that's a mind-bender!)

What's the answer? At a minimum media commentators and the rest of us need to WAKE UP and deconstruct these faulty frames. And all of us need to watch our backs and fight back every time this word-poison is injected into the public discourse."

I read somewhere today that it was another call for the revival of the federal DOMA. Though unfortunately for the wingnuts - it's already lost, what is is - three times now? It's all just a way to keep his base humming with anti-gay glee.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 01, 2006 at 2:37 PM. Want to discuss? Leave a comment below.