“I want to talk about the real state of our union, not the speech President Bush gave Tuesday night.
Bush's message and the Democratic Party's response can best be summed up in two passages, one from his 49-minute speech and the other from Virginia Sen. Jim Webb's brief response.
This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we're in,” Bush said in appealing to Congress for another chance to rescue his war policies from the scrap heap of historic blunders.
Webb panned that idea. He talked about how President Dwight Eisenhower pulled this country out of the Korean War, which had become “a bloody stalemate.” And he urged Bush to do the same in Iraq.
“Tonight we are calling on this president to take a similar action ... If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will show him the way,” Webb, a Vietnam War veteran, said.
All of this says more about the state of this nation's political divisions than the state of this nation, born 231 years ago.
Last year, the country made a political U-turn. Control of Congress shifted from the Republicans to the Democrats, a change ushered in not by a rebellious army but by voters' ballots.
If you think that's no big deal, consider this: Back in September, the government of Thailand changed hands when military leaders staged a coup. They didn't like the way the country was being run by that nation's elected leader. Instead of asking voters to oust him, the generals sent their tanks into the streets of Bangkok.
Last month, the appointed commander of Fiji's military ousted that island nation's elected government and installed himself as prime minister. His unelected government may cling to power for five years before holding national elections, his spokesperson said recently.
In Lebanon, supporters of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed political movement, have set up burning barricades in the streets of Beirut to force the elected government from power. The country is teetering on the brink of another civil war. The most recent one, which ended in 1990, lasted 15 years.
In neighboring Israel, President Moshe Katsav faces criminal indictment and the country's justice minister has asked him to resign. The ceremonial head of Israel's government, Katsav, is accused of raping several women and abusing his political power.
People in the mountainous country of Nepal, wedged between India and China, have been rioting for days. The violence is rooted largely in a tug-of-war between those who want a constitutional government and supporters of Nepal's deposed king.
Earlier this month, members of Taiwan's parliament threw punches and shoes at each other when they couldn't agree on a military spending bill.
Somalia has tried and failed 13 times since 1991 to establish a central government. The 14th attempt was just foisted upon that African nation by the army of Ethiopia, a neighboring state.
In Iraq, where the Bush administration has invested hundreds of billions of dollars and where more than 3,000 U.S. servicemen and women have lost their lives, the birth pangs of nationhood left 35,000 Iraqis dead last year.
The Iraqi parliament hasn't been able to produce a quorum in months, The New York Times reported recently. Some members have decided to sit out the war in places like London and Abu Dhabi, the paper said.
These are all nations in disarray.
But in this country, our democratic process continues to work, though sometimes slowly. Ours is still a nation of laws — one in which the military accepts civilian authority — and the president is subject to constitutional checks and balances.
So in this regard, it's safe to say the state of the union is strong.
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