Bush's Carter Moment

Back in the olden times - many years ago, before cell phones and John Stewart - there was a time when Presidents had their State of the Union speeches delivered. By a the pony express or an errand boy in a Dickensien frock no doubt. Some antebellum Scooter Libby type rode the pony up Capitol Hill and dropped off the Chief Executive's thoughts on a piece of parchment and rode away. No thunderous and ridiculous applause for every redundant bromide and faux tough guy remark. No embarrassing "propping" up of citizens. No need to "render" the Secretary of Paper Clips off to an undisclosed location in case the building went up. Ah, the good old days.

Watching this fellow Bush deliver his 3rd inaugural address tonight (it was called the State of the Union - whose union, I know not. Everytime the man speaks all I can think is "Whose country is he talking about"?) I wished mightily for the "olden times."

Even the usual laundry list SOTU speech is preferable to what Bush barked through tonight. But Rove and Bush and the rest simply cannot stop campaigning. It is all they know how to do. Hurricane hits? Diddle ( or maybe doodle) until a good set of talking points is cooked up, get the speech setting ready, fly in and out periodically as if it is always primary season, make THE SPEECH - then move on. War going badly? Talking points, followed by flying around to friendly audiences, make same speech - then move on.

W kicked off another campaign tonight. The "We've got to win in 06 - SO I WON'T BE IMPEACHED IN 07" campaign. It was an entirely mediocre performance from an entirely mediocre man. Bereft even of a good snarl. The GOP ace in the hole remains the cabal of political idiots on the other side of the isle. The Democratic "response" (HA!) managed to have even less content than Bush's speech, and was delivered from an Ethan Allen show room somewhere between Richmond and reality, by a man who apparently expresses himself entirely with his eyebrows. My hunch is that Tim Kaine is a good man. But...but... Barak Obama must have been to busy to write anything. Still, Barak Obama reading the Fresno phone book would have been more engaging.

Here's what Bush said: Iraq is going well. This is, of course, insane. Iran's government is dangerous. This is, of course, true. He did tread lightly on Iran so oil futures would stay below 70 dollars on Wednesday. Thursday is another matter. He said something about baby boomers getting old - and will enpanel a commission to study this imminent reality. He proposed a sad little healthcare initiative - no doubt to book end last year's sad big Social Security initiative.

And then,suddenly: a wee bit of reality crept in. George W. Bush stated that "America is addicted to oil." A statement so obvious and overdue it is akin to "It rains a lot in Seattle", or "The Superbowl gets high ratings." Why is this statement important? Because he said it. Out loud. Because it is the background hum of every single thing this man has done for the past 6 years. Which is to say - THE WAR. For once, he brought the truth into the foreground. I have no faith that it was anything but a talking point. But it is the one talking point we should all be talking about. The end of an era is happening as I write. Cheap oil is gone. Forever. Most of have no idea that this is true, or what it implies. We have lived so long and so well with cheap, easy oil that life without it has become unimaginable. Everything from staying warm in winter, to the well traveled salad you ate last night, to Walmart, to the suburbs as a viable idea, much less livable reality - are going to be thrown into question in the next decade. A growing number of people are grappling with the end of cheap oil. But not nearly enough. Technology may help lessen the turbulence - but it will not mitigate it. Learning to live with less energy now is the wisest option. America is about to powerdown. Whether or not we are ready. This is what Bush signaled tonight. Jimmy Carter warned us 35 years ago. But back then it was only America that was running low on oil. Now the world is.

Sadly, the real state of the union is unconscious.