"... clean energy technology ... advanced batttery technology ... new technologies that can generate coal power while capturing carbon emissions ... new international clean technology fund.... The United States is committed to strengthening our energy security and confronting global climate change, and the best way to meet these goals is for America to continue leading the way toward the development of cleaner and more energy-efficient technology."
For Bush/Luntz energy/climate policy, "Technology, technology, blah, blah," the State of the Union never, ever changes.
That was Bush's only use of the word "climate" in the speech -- though he did also say, "let us complete an international agreement that has the potential to slow, stop, and eventually reverse the growth of greenhouse gases." Potential! This is the last friggin' year of your second term and your big plan for dealing with climate is the potential of new technology and an agreement that has the potential to reverse emissions trends -- which itself is just doubletalk since you've spent 7 years working to block any international (or domestic) agreement.
I propose a new drinking game: one shot when Bush says something that isn't true, and a double shot when he says something that is actually the exact opposite of the truth. Unfortunately for me, before the actual SOTU, the White House released its State of the Union energy talking points, titled "Increasing Our Energy Security And Confronting Climate Change: The Administration Is Taking Steps To Reduce U.S. Dependence On Oil, And To Advance U.S. Leadership In Developing A Global Response To Climate Change."
And I passed out shortly after finishing the headline.
It is a laugh-til-it-hurts (and I mean root-canal-without-novocaine hurts) document, as the speech was.
Lets see. After 7 years:
President George W. Bush doesn't just fiddle while the planet burns, he actively fans the flames and thwarts the fire-fighters.
If I took a shot every time Bush lied and two shots when he pulled something Orwellian, I'd be passed out within three minutes (it takes this long *only* because he stammers a lot and introduces a lot of drivel he perceives as banter).
If I maintained consciousness beyond that, I'd be on my way to the hospital within five minutes, with acute alcohol poisoning!
Sebelius was compelling, in an Obama like manner, in challenging Bush to finally step up and start acting like most peoples stereotype of a real President. He or they, therefore continue to impress me as a real campaigning juggernaut. But juxtaposed against that image were the scenes of Republicans inside the Chambers, and this created the inevitable conclusion that things need to get far uglier before they have any chance of getting to the good place that Obama promises.
The Bush performance tonight was as cynical and passively-aggressively provocative as anything I have ever witnessed in the form of a national political speech, and the Republicans ate up his every insult at Democrats. They both showed that there is absolutely no public appetite among the Congressional Republicans to deviate from any part of the Bush Agenda, and that the 25% hard core wingnut minority can be counted on to walk more in lockstep than anything approaching the same size group in the 75% majority on any issue, let alone on everything.
What Obama seems to me to be on the verge of creating is an expectation among political newbie"s (of whatever age) that he can actually get something significant done quickly and the Republicans tonight just flipped him a giant finger. Obama needs either to form a national slate of candidates to replace the legislative sludge that he is facing, or he needs to let people know that real progress will only come in two years, when he is able to field such an organization. Instead, he creates the image that political trench warfare is going to resemble a picnic basket, checkered ground cloth, and a wildflower meadow. To me that borders on false advertising and likely breeds the seeds of its own failure.