The New York Times-20080129-A Nod to Big Ideas of the Past- but Domestic Issues Are Now the Focus- -News Analysis-
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A Nod to Big Ideas of the Past, but Domestic Issues Are Now the Focus; [News Analysis]
Full Text (965 words)Making his seventh and final State of the Union address, President Bush proposed a short list of initiatives Monday that more than anything else underscored the White House's growing realization that his biggest political opponents now are time and an electorate already looking beyond him.
This address lacked the soaring ambitions of Mr. Bush's previous speeches, though it had its rhetorical flourishes. He invoked the miracle of America but for the most part flatly recited familiar ideas -- cutting taxes, fighting terrorists, the war in Iraq -- rather than bold new ones. Nothing he proposed Monday is likely to redefine how history judges his presidency.
The biggest initiatives of the second Bush term -- the remaking of Social Security and the emotionally charged issue of illegal immigration -- are now in the category of what the White House calls unfinished business. Mr. Bush mentioned them on Monday only to state the obvious: both will remain unfinished on his watch.
So, too, will the war in Iraq, the issue that will define his legacy more than any other, and one for which he pointedly offered no new promises of troop withdrawals beyond those already proposed by the American commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus. Mr. Bush said he would instead await the recommendations now being drafted by General Petraeus at his headquarters at the presumptively named Camp Victory in Baghdad.
In contrast to last year's address to Congress, where he faced skepticism about sending more troops to Iraq, Mr. Bush cited a drop in violence and nascent signs of political reconciliation there. Rather than signaling a more rapid withdrawal, though, the president noted General Petraeus's warnings that the gains could quickly be reversed.
We must do the difficult work today, he said, so that years from now, people will look back and say that this generation rose to the moment, prevailed in a tough fight and left behind a more hopeful region and a safer America.
Mr. Bush now has less than a year left in office. But as the White House counselor, Ed Gillespie, noted on Monday, the window for realistically accomplishing much of anything during an election year will close by the time Congress adjourns in the summer and the presidential nominating conventions begin.
This year's campaign is such that the State of the Union Message -- an annual ritual of American governance for more than two centuries -- seemed like little more than a brief distraction between Senator Edward M. Kennedy's endorsement of Senator Barack Obama on Monday afternoon and Florida's primary vote on Tuesday. One Republican candidate, Senator John McCain, skipped the address to squeeze in a last day of campaigning there.
Everybody appears to be looking downstream, Scott Reed, a veteran Republican consultant, said Monday.
What the president did propose in his address was modest, focused more than ever on domestic matters and the growing concern about the economy.
An economic stimulus that has already moved forward; a campaign against earmarks for frivolous spending projects; grants for students in failing urban schools; new benefits for veterans and their families -- all may be worthy proposals, and some may feasibly be enacted.
Mr. Bush's aides insisted, again, that he would sprint to the finish. Not coincidentally, perhaps, the image conjures Ronald Reagan's vow in his last State of the Union message. Let's make this the best of eight, Mr. Reagan said 20 years ago. And that means it's all out, right to the finish line.
Mr. Reagan went on in that final year to reach deals with the Democrats involving trade, immigration and welfare, while signing an arms control treaty with the Soviet Union. Mr. Bush's aides would hardly disparage the comparison, and he also held out hope for a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians by the end of his presidency.
But Mr. Bush's final address also reflected that of the last two-term president. Bill Clinton, hobbled by impeachment but still far more popular at that point in his presidency than Mr. Bush is now, proposed a buffet of modest, centrist proposals, including cutting taxes for married couples, increasing grants for college and having Medicare pay for prescription drugs (which Mr. Bush's administration finally accomplished). At the time, Gov. George W. Bush of Texas criticized Mr. Clinton's litany of spending programs.
Both Mr. Reagan and Mr. Clinton delivered their final State of the Union messages with the fate of their vice presidents in mind, promoting legislative agendas that amounted to campaign platforms for their heirs.
Unlike Mr. Reagan and Mr. Clinton, whose vice presidents sought to succeed them, Mr. Bush spoke on Monday with no obvious heir. And while he has pledged to support his party's eventual nominee, Republican candidates can barely bring themselves to invoke his name on the campaign trail.
Mr. Bush's approval rating hovers at 29 percent, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. It has fallen with each State of the Union message since his first, delivered after Sept. 11, 2001, when Al Qaeda had been routed with the Taliban in Afghanistan and 82 percent approved of his handling of the job. Afghanistan, too, appeared to remain unfinished business; Mr. Bush noted the recent decision to send 3,200 Marines to bolster the American-led coalition against a resurgent Taliban.
And though he declared that the state of the union would remain strong, as tradition obliges presidents to do, only 19 percent of Americans think the country is generally on the right track, as low a number as any recorded.
From expanding opportunity to protecting our country, we have made good progress, Mr. Bush said, appealing for a bipartisanship that has largely eluded the country during his presidency. Yet we have unfinished business before us, and the American people expect us to get it done.
