Recommended Reading

Glenn Kessler has the best analysis of the State of the Union Address I've seen so far. He does a nice job deconstructing the misleading use of the word "enemy" throughout Bush's speech.

Some memorable moments for me:

I could hardly believe that Bush would reference Lebanon's 2005 Cedar Revolution when--at this very moment--an equally powerful, important, and broad-based counter-revolution is already under way there. Bush implied that any turnaround since the "Arab Spring" was the result of our scheming enemies. But Bush himself gave the go ahead for the discrediting and humiliation of the Siniora government by greenlighting Israel's ill-advised war and blocking any effort to bring it to a speedy conclusion.

Bush said, "We have a diplomatic strategy that is rallying the world to join in the fight against extremism." Rallying the world? The Bush administration's diplomatic strategy? For the world's reaction to the Bush administration's "strategy," diplomatic and otherwise, see yesterday's post.

Thankfully, Jim Webb's response gave us something better to remember. It was, without a doubt, the best Democratic party response to a SOTU address in all the years of the Bush presidency. Forceful and genuine, with a big-picture world view that united both his domestic and foreign policy critique. I understand that he wouldn't read the speech written for him by the Democratic party staff (i.e., the speech by committee). He wrote the response himself, and he seemed to believe in what he was saying. It's about time for the Democrats to show some conviction and leadership.