The British do pomp and circumstance better than anyone in the world. We can't compete with the Queen's Speech, or the State Opening of Parliament. We don't have any delightfully anachronistic Gentlemen Ushers of the Black Rod being anachronistically heckled by Members of Parliament.
We don't do ceremony very well. We have our political conventions, but they were only interesting when they meant something. Only the most devoted of politics junkies watch the roll call of states. No, the State of the Union address is as good as it gets when it comes to American political ceremony. It was modeled on the Queen's Speech.
It makes good theater: The courier delivering the invitation to the White House. The Sergeant-At-Arms of the House of Representatives announcing, "Mr Speaker, the President of the United States!". The parties making political points by applauding, or not applauding, or applauding reluctantly. The Presidential assertion that "the state of our Union is strong".
The state of our Union is not strong.
The state of our Union is much worse than it should be. The President didn't say that, of course, and no one sensible expected him to. It was a good speech, far better than last year's disoriented and bizarre discourse about steroids and pretending to go to Mars. The tribute to our fallen soldiers was a moving reminder that we are all Americans, with more to unite us than divide us. And the hugs between the parents of a dead Marine and an Iraqi woman who had lost her family made us hope that some good can yet come from our wrong-headed war on Iraq.
But shame on those Republican congressmen who waved ink-stained fingers in the air, as if to claim credit for the bravery of the Iraqis who risked death to vote last week. Their courage does not belong to you.
The emotional heart of the speech was definitely Iraq, but the political fight of the coming year will be waged at home, and the political heart of the speech came early, when Mr Bush discussed his domestic agenda. The centerpiece of the Republican program is to be the rollback of the New Deal, but to be fair, there were some good ideas, too. The President was right when he talked about the need for energy independence. He was right when he talked about the need for rural health care. We'll see if he's serious when we see the administration's proposed budget later this month. If he is serious, I'll support it, but for now, actions speak louder than words.
As for his claim to cut his budget deficit in half by 2009, the President was lying. He excludes from his calculations the entire cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He excludes the $2,500,000,000,000 cost of his new round of tax cuts. He excludes the $2,000,000,000,000 cost of his plan to kill Social Security. Those aren't typos. His budget is missing over five trillion dollars. And even with this chicanery, he still can't even pretend to balance the budget. We're over $5,000,000,000,000 short of cutting the deficit in half. It was only five years ago that the Democrats had completely eliminated the deficit and were well on the way to paying off the federal debt. The GOP can't be trusted with our money.
The Republican inability to manage a budget has become so absurd that last night this most partisan of Presidents had to weakly insist that responsible budgets are a "bipartisan" concern. That's Washington-speak for "even the Republicans now acknowledge that the Democrats are the party of prudent and fiscally sound government".
The main issue of the night was the attempted dismemberment of Social Security. Bush's erroneous claims that "by 2042, Social Security would be exhausted and bankrupt" were greeted with good, old-fashioned Parliamentary jeers and boos. As the cries of "No!" echoed through the chamber, I cheered the thought that we have an opposition party again. The victory is not yet ours, but at any rate, we've finally realized that wars are not won without fighting.
And for that, the state of our Union just might be looking up.