The SOTU

I suppose I'll have to toss in my two cents-worth on the SOTU speech. Fact is that I avoided much of it. I had a feeling this year that, much as I have supported President Bush's policies in the War on Terror (largely supported, anyway), he wasn't going to have a lot to say that would inspire me to give him my unwavering support for another four years.

So I watched "Miller's Crossing", instead, until it was over and I had to choice but to watch the SOTU. What I saw (and later read) was not necessarily encouraging.

I agree with Andrew Sullivan and other commentators that this President's fiscal wrecklessness is unnerving. The side of me that I can call "conservative" is definitely fiscally so more than socially so. It is therefore axiomatic that I not only oppose Bush's wreckless spending, but that I also oppose the occasional bones he likes to throw to the Religious Right, such as floating his possible support for a federal marriage amendment.

The Constitutional Amendment process has historically been used to expand the circle of privileges and immunities to persons who were previously deprived of the benefits of equal participation in American life. Amending the Constitution to now exclude a class of people from the pursuit of happiness would be a catastrophe indeed; one whose fruition I could not possibly countenance. I thus find Bush's allusions to the possibility of such an amendment to be deeply troubling.

Also, I have long been adamantly opposed to the War on Drugs, and I find his proposals to expand drug testing in schools to be rather appalling. I could go on but the reader will find plenty to go on by review my "Published Writing" sidebar at the left.

But then I look "across the aisle" and what am I offered? Nancy Pelosi and Tom Daschle, looking and sounding more insane than ever. Good Grief!