[Peace-discuss] SOTU

[C. G. Estabrook]

[The unreality of Bush's SOTU speech last night was so great that even an
associate editor of the Washington Post couldn't miss it (below).  The
most sickening sight was that of the members of Congress leaping to their
feet in unison time and again, looking for all the world like the Romanian
parliament a generation ago.  --CGE]

Bush often describes a world whose features are all highly debatable, if
not simply invented. He proposes "a comprehensive health care agenda" that
will leave perhaps 50 million Americans without health insurance. Is that
comprehensive in any meaningful sense? He promises big economic benefits
from legal changes, "tort reform," that independent economists say cannot
have more than a small economic effect even if enacted, which is not
likely. [And] he promises to increase the size of Pell Grants, not noting
that they have shrunk far below the level he promised when he came into
the White House.  --Robert Kaiser at
<http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/zforum/04/kaiser020205.htm>