Another year, another exercise in nearly unwatchable mediocrity.

What follows are my notes on the '06 State of the Union Address. They're partial and rather disjointed - but hey, at least this way you didn't have to actually watch the thing.

First off it's worth noting the very different approach Dub took this year, with a 39 percent approval rating and several potential scandals hanging over his head, as compared to last year when he was flying (relatively) high with a fresh re-election and a 53 percent approval rating.

Both speeches clocked in a just under an hour (55 minutes this year and 53 last year, by my decidely unofficial watch). But this year Dub's marionettes front-loaded the War on Terror and devoted the second portion of the speech to domestic issues - a reversal of last year's speech. Each section ran 25 minutes, give or take, as opposed to last year when the domestic piece lasted for more than a half hour and the foreign policy bit ran only about 20 minutes.

What does all this add up to? A weakened President, chastened by the misplaced arrogance of last year's attempt at Social Security destruction reform, tacks back to his strengths: national security and the War on Terror (although he's been steadily sinking on those counts as well).

And FYI, the obligatory CNN/USA Today "snap poll" taken just after the speech ended showed that 48 percent of respondents had a "very positive" impression of the speech. That's way down from 60 percent last year, and the second-lowest of Dub's Presidency (45 percent in '04; in '01, '02 and '03 he scored 66, 74 and 50 percent, respectively)

This comports with my general impression, which is that Jethro was flat, flat flat, and the speech itself was uninspiring, uninspiring, uninspiring.

Now, onto the highlights.

Act I. Affect and Images

• The Thrill Is Gone. It was almost impossible to find the Gucci Cowboy Swagger or the Overgrown Fratboy Smirk this year. Without the unwarranted arrogance, Dub ain't got much left, which explains why his performance was so... limp. Which leads me to...
  
  
• Crickets. For the most part, the applause was less enthusiastic, and of shorter duration, than last year and in most years past (which includes Dub, Clinton and Bush the Elder). It was just over three minutes from when Dub entered the chamber, to when the applause died down so House Speaker Dennis Hastert could formally introduce him. And it took only 30 seconds from that moment for the second round to end so Bush could start speaking. In both cases, the hootin' and a-hollerin' one normally hears at the SOTU was notable for its absence. With a couple of exceptions, this trend continued throughout the entire speech.
  
  
• Here's Your Bobbit Moment. Towards the end, Dub introduced the Social Security issue by noting that many Baby Boomers were turning 60 this year, "including two of my father's favorite people - me and President Clinton." As the joke fell flat, CNN cut to Hillary, all pursed lips and daggers. I've never before seen someone look homicidal at the SOTU.
  
  
• As with the ink-dipped finger trick from last year's Iraqi elections, I'm not sure if my reaction to the following was the direct opposite of what you'll be reading and viewing in the mainstream news media over the next few days - but I found the parading out of the family of a recently killed U.S. serviceman to be pathetic and not a little gruesome. The sadness in the eyes of the poor man's widow and parents seemed not at all attenuated by the ostensibly heartfelt tribute offered them by their Commander in Grief. But maybe that's just me.
  
  
• Didn't See That Coming, Didya? After his bad joke about himself and Clinton, Dub continued his lead-in to Social Security by saying, "Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security" - and was interrupted mid-sentence by thunderous applause and a standing-O from every Democrat in the place. It was easily one of the top three applause moments in terms of volume and intensity, and I daresay even the most disinterested observer would have to agree that it was highly embarrassing.
  
  
• Going Nukuler. This chimpanzee of a leader still can't say "nuclear." After all these years, one can't help but wonder if it's intentional at this point - perhaps Rove has made a virtue of a necessity by convincing himself that "nukuler" sounds folksy or down-to-earth. Whatever the reason, it never fails to boggle the mind, no matter how many times one hears Jethro utter it.
  

Act II. Language and Framing

• The speech began with a tribute to Coretta Scott King (who died today, FYI in case you were hiding under a rock). One might argue that it was a cheap gesture, or simply a politically compulsory move. But even so, it does in my view indicate the progress that's been made in mainstreaming the advances wrought by the civil rights movement, even over the last 10-15 years.
  
  
• All the Great Leaders Are Dead, and I'm not Feeling So Well Myself. Dub declared himself "humbled by the privilege" of giving the SOTU (even though it's, like, totally a Constitutional requirement), and told Congress in the first three minutes that "it's been my honor to serve with you." It seems rather like the sort of language one should use in one's final SOTU. Perhaps Dub's thinking that Mikie Brown had it right with his "Can I go home yet?" email.
  
  
• It's All Good, Trust Me. "The state of the union is strong," said the President. Utterly unremarkable, except that he said it within the first three minutes of the speech, which in my memory is utterly unprecedented. Typically a President will wait to utter the famous line until he has provided some, you know, evidence to back it up. But I suppose the baseless assertion has worked for this guy in the past, so why not?
  
  
• And in Case You Forgot: 9-11!!!! The first mention of September 11 came less than five minutes in (at about the 3:30 mark in fact). Of course.
  
  
• Victory Is at Hand. "We are winning" in Iraq, said Dub, and our "strategy for victory" is working. Can't put my finger on it precisely, but for some reason he sounded more like he was talking about Vietnam than I've ever heard him sound before.
  
  
• The War on... Isolationism. The speech was structured primarily as a critique of isolationism, as a way of justifying the war in Iraq, and also as a way of promoting free trade (in which context isolationism became protectionism). This, it seems to me, was a curious and not terribly effective choice, since it's a paper tiger. Thanks to decades of neoliberalism in American politics and cultural life, there's very little isolationist or protectionist sentiment among the President's enemies. In fact, with the partial exception of some segments of organized labor, one can safely say that isolationism thrives most these days in the rightwing Republican base. Put simply, fighting isolationism gets Dub nothing in terms of political leverage against Congressional Dems, or much of anyone else. Ditto for his attempt to bash Dems for "second-guessing" and "defeatism" - it didn't destroy Murtha the first - or second, or third - time, so why Dub's handlers expected it to work this time around is beyond me.
  
  
• How Offensive Can You Get? The frame of isolationism allowed - or perhaps masked - a foreign policy agenda utterly lacking in specifics. Not until the 33-minute mark - when the foreign policy bit was well over - did Dub articulate a specific policy proposal or idea. Up until then, he simply repeated the mantra "we must stay on the offensive" to describe U.S. policy on, well, everything.
  
  
• Keep Hope Alive, and a Place Called Hope, and, Well, You Get the Point. "A Hopeful Society" constituted the speech's secondary frame. "In a Hopeful Society," much of the domestic-issue portion of the speech went, something good happens - children achieve, people have health care, etc. And in order to encourage or produce that good outcome, Congress should support my policies - on tax cuts, tort reform, and so on. Not a great device, not a terrible device, certainly not an original device. I think it was serviceable enough to score a few points on some domestic issues.
  
  
• The Sound Bite. On energy, Dub said, "America is addicted to oil." This was the first, and only, thing Wolf Blitzer noted right after the speech ended. And I'm sure it'll be the phrase on all the front pages, and on the tips of all the analysts' tongues, in the coming days. Big Oil Man Finds God, Embraces New Energy Technologies, etcetera, etcetera.
  
  
• To Stem or not to Stem? Dub once again spoke out in favor of laws banning the sale of human embryos. This year he added to that a plea to Congress to outlaw human cloning in all its forms, the creation of embryos solely for use in scientific experiments, and, bizarrely, the creation of human-animal hybrids. It's difficult to tell because the language is so coded, but as I listened I wondered if perhaps the administration isn't considering softening its position a bit on stem cell research using embryos that have been created for purposes other than experimentation (i.e. from fertility attempts). Of course, it could just be wishful thinking on my part.
  

Act III. Substance (Sort of)

• Social Security, Perhaps. Utterly defeated last year, Bush this time called only for the formation of a "bipartisan commission" to study the impact of the Baby Boomers on Social Security and Medicare. So now we can spell victory c-o-m-m-i-s-s-i-o-n.
  
  
• Democracy on the March. He applauded the rise of democracy in the Middle East and around the world. In what was actually a pretty heartening moment, he observed that the world had "about two dozen" democracies in 1945, while today it has 122. (Of course, the definition of democracy is pretty slippery, but hey, effective rhetoric is effective rhetoric.) More specifically, he cited recent elections in Iraq. Afghanistan and, yes, the Palestinian territories. On the ticklish question of Hamas, he stated, "The Palestinian people have voted," and now Hamas must renounce violence, affirm Israel's right to exist, disarm, and cease terrorist activities. In other words, it was good that the Palestinians voted, and we respect that they voted for Hamas instead of Fatah - the only thing we require is that Hamas immediately and unilaterally transform itself into Fatah.
  
  
• Maybe It's a Little More Complicated than the Axis of Evil. In addition to Iran, Syria and North Korea, Dub acknowledged Zimbabwe and Burma as places where people live with undemocratic states. It may not seem like much, but when was the last time a President mentioned Burma, with its appalling human rights record, in the SOTU?
  
  
• College Loans, um, Nevermind. Nothing this year about increasing the size of Pell Grants - in fact, nothing at all about college education, which is unsurprising given that the administration has succeeded in cutting college loans in this year's budget.
  
  
• Stay the Course, Withdraw the Troops. Troop levels in Iraq will decrease - there, he said it. But, talking tough as ever, he noted that "those decisions will be made by our military commanders, not by politicians in Washington, D.C." This statement is what is known in technical terms as a f*cking lie - the decisions, Dub was saying, will be made by politicians in the White House, under whose pressure the generals will continue to pursue a warped policy that prevents either the deployment of sufficient troops or the prompt withdraw of large numbers of troops, instead leaving the military in a limbo of large-scale but still insufficient force strength, with personnel pushed to their limits and forced to extend their tours of duty.
  
  
• Get Shorty al Qaeda, Kill Bill al Qaeda. The old arrogance and brazenness made an appearance when Dub defended clearly illegal warrantless wiretapping by claiming that it's being used solely to track al Qaeda - another f*cking lie. Time for impeachment, plain and simple.
  
  
• The Syrianna Plan. Dub unveiled the Advanced Energy Initiative, which promotes, among other things, non-corn-based ethanol production, wind power, solar power, "zero-emission coal-fired plants" (an Orwellian construction if ever there were one), and "safe, clean nuclear enegy" (beyond Orwellian, that one). On the plus side, he articulated a goal of "replacing 75 percent of Middle East oil imports by 2025" and "making our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past." Hard to be against that one - not only for U.S. self-interest but for the future political stability of the Middle East.
  
  
• Health Care, or Not. Dub had specifics on health care, which would be a mark in his favor if his specifics didn't all, how you say, suck. He advocated wider use of electronic medical records to cuts administrative costs (of course, single-payer health care would eliminate tens of billions of such costs per year); increased use of Health Savings accounts (i.e. Social Security privatization by other means); portable coverage (with absolutely no sense of what he meant or how it would happen); and, my favorite, tort reform to lower medical malpractice premiums.
  
  
• And the Rest. A wealth of other items came in rapid succession, including, once again, advocacy of an impossibly baroque bracero/gastarbeiter program, meant to placate both the business and rightwing camps of his party on the immigration issue; advocacy of re-upping the Ryan White Act for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment; declaring support for unspecified ethical reforms in Congress; pushing an initiative meant to promote math and science education; and, in a spectacularly unconvincing manner, trying to align himself with his own critics on the constellation of issues raised by Hurricane Katrina.
  

Act IV. The Biggest Whopper

• "In recent years America has become a more hopeful nation."
  

(Coming soon: a brief recap of the surprisingly concise Democratic Response.)

From the Dept. of Well, Duh

FLASH - this is just in from The Old Grey Lady: a new study reveals that day laborers are exploited and exposed to poor working conditions.

When you've taken a moment to recover from your shock, head over to NYT.com and you'll find the following:

• Three-quarters of day labors are illegal immigrants;
  
• Eight-seven percent are from Mexico or Central America;
  
• About half are employed by homeowners, and most of the rest by construction contractors; and
  
• Virtually all of them earn less than $15,000 a year.

Who knew?

But that's not all:

The professors who conducted the study said the most surprising finding was the pervasiveness of wage violations and dangerous conditions that day laborers face. "We were disturbed by the incredibly high incidence of wage violations," said one of the study's authors, Nik Theodore of the University of Illinois at Chicago. "We also found a very high level of injuries."

Which of course begs the question, Who are these professors and under what giant rock have they been living for the past decade and a half?

Clearly, the most startling tidbit in the Times piece isn't that day laborers get stiffed by their "employers" or that they face more injuries than an NFL linebacker. Rather, it's that the study referenced in the article is "the first nationwide study on day laborers."

The shock and awe felt by these scholars - and presumably by the Times reporter, who appears to relate this sense of surprise with a straight face - owes less to moral repugnance and more to the appalling state of labor journalism and research in neoliberal America. No one in the mainstream press, and precious few in academia, cares much about workers as workers anymore. Rising scrutiny of firms like Wal-Mart is great, but in the mainstream press that attention generally comes through the culturally pervasive, individualizing lens of "human interest" rather than workers' rights. When, for example, was the last time you read anything in a daily paper or weekly newsmagazine (The Nation excepted) by a "labor journalist"? Or read a prominent review in the Sunday Books section of a new tract by a "labor historian"?

As I watch soon-to-be-Justice Alito piously affirm, for the cameras, the humanity and equality of every homo sapien on God's Green Earth, even as his supporters, mentors and handlers eagerly await the day when he'll help sweep right into the overflowing dustbin of history any means we as a society might use to nourish, guarantee and protect that equality - as I watch this tragicomic spectacle, I wonder what Martin Luther King Jr. would think of our post-racist, post-feminist, post-bigotry, neoliberal world.

In that vein, for an interesting, if facile, thought experiment, check out the latest episode of Aaron McGruder's recently brought-to-TV version of his notorious comic strip The Boondocks. In it, MLK doesn't die after being shot on a Memphis hotel balcony on April 4, 1968 - he goes into a coma. He awakens 32 years later, at the end of October, 2000. He regains his faculties just in time to head to the polls for the 2000 Presidential Election - where he is denied the right to vote because of "irregularities." Soon after September 11, it is him, not host Bill Maher, who makes an "unpatriotic" remark on "Politically Incorrect" (King says that as a Christian he believes one should love one's enemies and turn the other cheek; he's pilloried in the media and labeled as pro-bin Laden by Fox News.)

I won't spoil the rest of it - suffice it to say it manages all sorts of critique of our current reality while imagining a final utopian moment, all while resisting the urge to portray the reanimated (pun intended) MLK as a saint. So pay no heed to Entertainment Weekly's hasty verdict (as if you would anyway), and check it out - you've got a chance to catch the repeat tomorrow, Saturday January 21, at 11:00PM EST.

"We have moved into an era where we are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society. We are still called upon to give aid to the beggar who finds himself in misery and agony on life's highway. But one day, we must ask the question of whether an edifice which produces beggars must not be restructured and refurbished."
(1968)
On this National Holiday, so long in coming, so hard-won, let us remember the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who preached nonviolence, led the Montgomery Bus Boycott, wrote the Letter from a Birmingham Jail, and made the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington a foundational moment in our national history.

But let us also remember the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who understood that "True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice"; who opposed the Vietnam War; and who stood in solidarity with workers, sought to bring national attention to American poverty, and spoke eloquently of economic justice for people of all races.

And let us remember not a saint, a redeemer, or a singular figure. Let us instead remember a fallible, ever-developing human being, influenced by Christ, Ghandi and Marx, whose philosophy and strategy changed and grew over time, for both principled and pragmatic reasons; a comrade working in concert with many, many others - some close allies, some fiercely independent, some remembered, some long forgotten - to build not just an idea of racial equality, but a broad-based movement for social justice.

Finally, let us honor his memory by appraising our world as he did his - and by comprehending, as he did, just how much remains to be done.

"I must confess that I have enjoyed being on this mountaintop and I am tempted to want to stay here and retreat to a more quiet and serene life. But something within reminds me that the valley calls me in spite of all its agonies, dangers, and frustrating moments. I must return to the valley. Something tells me that the ultimate test of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and moments of convenience, but where he stands in moments of challenge and moments of controversy."
(1965)

Part One of Two

A well-publicized poll reveals that "the nation is divided over whether the Bush administration should use wiretaps without first obtaining a warrant."

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll of 1,003 adults found that 50 percent of those polled believe it's OK to forgo warrants when ordering electronic surveillance of people suspected of having ties to terrorists abroad. Another 46 percent said the policy is wrong, and 4 percent said they had no opinion.

It's certainly appalling that a plurality thinks this sort of practice is okay (or "OK" in CNN's excruciating syntax for the marginally literate). And it's hard to know whether to laugh or cry over the four percent who are so fixated on their PSPs and video iPods that they can't be bothered to give a rat's patoot about the most egregious domestic surveillance crime since Watergate. (Of course, given that more than twice as many respondents - nine percent - said they were following the wiretapping story "not at all," the poll also reveals that some Americans are happy to pass judgment on a matter about which they admit knowing absolutely nothing.)

But there's something much worse underlying this impressionist (or is it expressionist?) portrait of the national, er, mind: and that's the notion that warrantless domestic wiretapping is somehow a "policy," which should be evaluated as a matter of opinion.

The CNN poll shouldn't have asked, "Do you think the Bush administration was right or wrong in wiretapping these conversations without obtaining a court order?" By rights, it should have asked, "If it is determined that President Bush authorized the wiretapping of conversations in the United States without a warrant, do you think he should be impeached?"

Why didn't the poll ask that question. If you guessed, "Because CNN, USA Today and Gallup are cowards," you'd be right, but only in part.

The other, more important part of the answer is that there's no question of Dubya's culpability, because he hasn't denied it. You'll note there's been no plausible deniability here, no political firewall set up to insulate Dub from the lever-pullers. To the contrary, he's proudly admitted to the crime, and if you listen carefully you'll note that he hasn't even really bothered to argue that it's not a crime. Rather, he simply glosses over the question of legality and goes straight to an argument about necessity.

And it's that shift from law to necessity that's most telling, and frightening, as we'll see in the next entry here.

From Our Thoughtless Fearless Leader, this AM:

Good morning. I just had breakfast with Judge Alito. I told him I think he conducted himself with such dignity and class in the weeks leading up to the confirmation process, which begins today. Sam Alito is imminently qualified to be a member of the bench. ... [H]e is well qualified to be a Supreme Court judge. Sam's got the intellect necessary to bring a lot of class to that Court.

Who knew that class was an important qualification for the Supreme Court? And further, who knew that the Court, as currently constituted, was so deficient in it? Forget judicial philosophy and jurisprudential precedent; this dude's got a sharp suit and knows how to order a bottle of wine at a restaurant. If confirmed, he's really gonna raise the profile of the joint.

So ring-a-ding-ding, and away we go with the right to choose and limits on Executive power.

Killing Sharon Softly with Dubya's Words

"Laura and I share the concerns of the Israeli people about Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's health," reads President Bush's official statement, "and we are praying for his recovery. Prime Minister Sharon is a man of courage and peace. On behalf of all Americans, we send our best wishes and hopes to the Prime Minister and his family."

Very nice. Now here's what Dubya actually said, when he didn't have his speechwriters to talk pretty for him and had to rely on his own, um, wits:

We pray for his recovery. He's a good man, a strong man, a man who cared deeply about the security of the Israeli people and a man who had a vision for peace. May God bless him.

To his credit, he remembered to include the crucial words: "peace" and, of course, "God" (God forbid he not mention God). But notice how he calls a man who's just had a massive stroke and who's in a coma, a "strong" man. And note equally how he then proceeds to eulogize him, referring to him in the past tense.

These are subtle things, to be sure. But they sure made me stand up and take notice when I heard it on NPR. And it's the subtleties that shape language, that create meaning, and that provide little windows into the mind, and perhaps the sould, of one's Leader.