State of the Union 2005

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President George W. Bush delivered his State of the Union 2005 address to the Nation on February 2, 2005.


Bush Administration Perspective

Word/reaction/TV coverage Count

Word Count
liberty45
free/dom33
terror/ism27
Iraq/Iraqi27
Social Security15
democracy8
Palestinian5
Afghanistan3
Audience reaction Count
Applause68
Standing ovation44
Audible dissension2
TV coverage stats
Laura Bush close-up9
Donald Rumsfeld close-up4
Condolezza Rice close-up2
Content analysis
Av. characters p/ word4.7
Flesch-Kincaid grade level11.2

Significant Omissions

  • tabulated

Commentary

  • Azmi Bishara, "Free for all", Al Ahram Weekly, February 3, 2005.
Contemplating Bush's speeches there is the temptation to discuss words and their meanings. But Bush does not write his own speeches. Commentaries on his inaugural address of 20 January in the US press make it clear that Michael Gerson was responsible for the speech which underwent 22 revisions.
Rarely has the business of ghostwriting and revising presidential speeches been talked about with such candour. Ghostwriting has long been an open secret. Now, though, the American establishment sees no harm in admitting that the president of the world's sole superpower is unable to pen a quarter-hour speech. Nor do people presume he should be capable of this task, or that this is even an issue to begin with. It is all perfectly normal now to see the president's word cobblers in a press interview, offering an exhaustive postmortem of the drafting process.
There was one sentence in the speech that revealed with spine chilling clarity the ulterior purpose behind Bush's rhetoric: "America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one." This must be the most insidiously propagandistic statement I have ever read. Nothing more clearly epitomises this administration's determination to compel the public to identify with the ideology of the state. The American people are to understand that their "deepest beliefs" and their interests are one and the same thing. Taken in the context of this speech, and in conjunction with Bush's other speeches, they should further understand that it is now in America's interests for that most American of beliefs -- liberty -- to be wielded as a primary instrument in foreign policy and the pursuit of imperial hegemony. On this, moreover, Bush is explicit: "Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our nation. It is the honourable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time."
Just in case anyone had not yet realised, Bush informed the American people that their nation had a holy mission and asked them, in the name of national security, to put their hearts and souls into supporting that mission. Imagine an Arab leader pronouncing this in Arabic. It would have our neo-liberals wringing their hands at the very least.
It is doubtful whether large sectors of the American public realise that they are being mobilised against their own interests, or that their self assertion in the face of degenerate liberal elites has been welded into an ideological cloak for policies that have, and will continue to, rebound against them.
It is their sons and daughters who will die in wars in which they are being urged to do more and sacrifice more, while Bush cannot even take the trouble to mention the name of the country in which the lives of American soldiers are being sacrificed today: "Our country has accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfil and would be dishonourable to abandon."

Media Commentary and Analysis

Green Party Perspective

Center for American Progress

External Resources: State of the Union

Historical

2005

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