...opened with President Bush using blatant election year campaign tactics of choosing between us good and them bad, 9/11 references, and pounding the drumbeats of "freedom by force", rather than the Reagan ideal of containment that had been working and would have worked against Iraq.

It continued with fear mongering about terrorists threatening our freedoms and the need to fight to protect ours by fighting over theirs.

After mentioning the failure of his Social Security cuts (to which the Democrats cheered), he urged Congress to try again.

He then proposed many Democratic proposals, such as a shift away from foreign oil, major research and development in new energy technologies, and support for immigrants, short of amnesty. Like previous State of the Union speeches, he always co-opts key Democratic ideas, thereby killing them for a year, lest Democrats have to give credit to the President.

However, he then fibbed, saying welfare roles had dropped, abortion was the lowest in years, and drug use was low. He must be using cooked numbers or numbers on a "special scale".

...