The State of the Union

Unlike most of the pundits and commentators, I thought the president’s State of the Union address on Tuesday was one of his better speeches. Some may regard the relativity of that statement as damning him with faint praise.

First, his demeanor was much more presidential. The smirks and swagger were no where to be seen. He seemed confident and focused. There was a lot of commentary about how subdued and somber the speech seemed, especially when compared to other State of the Union addresses that this president and others have given. In my opinion, this speech should have been restrained; anything else would probably have come off as seriously inconsistent with the context in which it was being delivered.

A president whose job performance is now approved by only 30% or less of the American public should come before the nation in a somber and reflective mood. It’s not a time for this president to be cheerleading or to be acting like the country isn’t in a somber and reflective mood. Sometimes the public reflects the mood of the president; but sometimes it’s appropriate if not essential for the reflection to be in the other direction.

The president led with his domestic agenda, which surprised some people given the wounded elephant in the room – his strategy for the war in Iraq. I thought there was nothing inappropriate about leading from the domestic side. Arguably, the “state of the Union” is primarily a domestic subject, anyway.

The president focused primarily on three subjects that are worthy of immediate national debate – healthcare, energy independence, and immigration. On these subjects I give the president a mixed review. On the positive side, his proposals were not so partisan in tone or content that they could be summarily dismissed by the opposition party. They were serious and substantive enough to serve as a call to meaningful debate on each of them in this congressional session. The healthcare proposal the president mentioned is probably DOA, but it can serve as the beginning of new deliberations. The energy independence proposal that he offered is a worthy concept, but one that is filled with challenges and is focused initially on several highly debatable objectives. The immigration proposal that Mr. Bush has favored for some time may have a better chance of success in this Congress than in the one before it.

On the negative side, the president did not seem deeply engaged or enthusiastic about anything he offered, in spite of the fact that this portion of the speech was generally regarded as the door through which he would walk in order to try to create a legacy that extends beyond the war in Iraq. It was an opportunity that he let slip through his fingers. There was no emotional punch or inspiration to be seen or heard. In this regard, his somber approach to the evening made him ineffective in rallying support in the room.

Most of the applause he received was obligatory and polite, and just as restrained as the comments to which it was directed. The one notable exception was the almost ridiculous level of giddy excitement exhibited by the delegation from Iowa in response to the president securing that state’s future by recommending that the U.S. should shift our addiction to oil to an addiction to ethanol.

Notably, the president did not say a single word about the tripartite right wing-nut social agenda – abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research. I appreciated that undoubtedly deliberate omission. Those are subjects that get beaten to death on the campaign trail and at almost every partisan gathering, so we can give ourselves permission to lay them aside and turn to other more pressing matters from time to time, if not most of the time, if not all of the time.

Finally the president turned to the wounded elephant – Iraq. Having recently addressed the nation on the “new way forward”, there wasn’t much else that was new in this part of the speech – except for one huge admission, an admission that is bigger than admitting that we’re not winning and bigger than admitting that we’ve made mistakes. The president said:

“This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we're in.”

The president and his administration have said at one time or another that we entered the fight in Iraq for one or more of the following reasons:

o To eliminate weapons of mass destruction
o To topple the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein
o To bring freedom and democracy to Iraq and other parts of the Middle East
o To engage in the central battle in the war on terrorism
o To engage in the defining battle of our times
o To engage in a fight for civilization
o To wage a decisive ideological struggle against Islamist extremism
o To “fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here”

On Tuesday night, the president admitted for the first time that the war in Iraq is no longer a fight for these things; it is no longer the fight we entered. The fighting in Iraq has become something else. The president has yet to admit that the war against terrorism in Iraq has become a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites. It’s an inescapable admission that even the president will have to acknowledge at some time.

My conclusion is simple: if this is no longer the fight we entered, and I agree that it isn’t, then it’s a fight we should no longer be in. Just because this is the fight we now find ourselves in does not mean that it's a fight that we must or should stay in. A sleepwalker who suddenly awakens in the middle of a busy highway is not compelled to stay there and take a stand against the traffic. A fight must have a purpose and the purpose for which we got into this one, no matter how one characterizes that purpose, is no longer valid.

The president would probably declare that our purpose is now to defend the nascent Iraqi democracy and that we’re there at their request. In other words, a war that we entered for our purpose has now become a war that we’re staying in for someone else’s purpose. Even that assumes that the Iraqi government actually wants us to remain, which is something that has become highly debatable in the last two to three months.

And as for the Iraqi democracy, that’s an institution that probably has to progress in order to actually become nascent. The Iraqi parliament has been able to hold very few meetings since November for one fundamental reason – they can’t get a quorum to show up to the meetings. In fact, a number of the members of the Iraqi parliament have not just left the building with Frasier; they’ve left the country. The government for whom we’re fighting, the government upon which the “new way forward” depends, is almost inoperative.

Like the president said, this is not why we entered Iraq. It is, however, why we should join certain members of the Iraqi parliament and leave the country.