My Thoughts on the State of the Union Address

By Tony Mazur

In his eighth and final State of the Union Address, President Bush came out firing, flared nostrils and all.

I'm not a big fan of the non-stop applause breaks (there were roughly 70 of them). But when you look into the crowd from the overhead camera, you can see the divided room. The Republicans are standing and clapping, while the Democrats sat there, nodding off like Bill Clinton at a Martin Luther King, Jr. Ceremony.

Anyways, onto my thoughts.

President Bush brought up the fact that elementary school students are scoring higher on test scores than ever before. That includes African Americans and Hispanics. Democrats ripped on the president, saying the No Child Left Behind Act was a waste of time and money. It appears to be working now, isn't it?

Another topic was the Patriot Act. Since September 11th, 2001, there hasn't been an attack on American soil. We can thank the Patriot Act for that. There has been attempts to attack Los Angeles and other major cities in the United States, with no success. They tapped the terrorists' phone lines to stop the attack before it even started. They weren't tapping Joe Blow's cell phone in Middleburg Heights, Ohio. And if they were, what do you have to hide?

I'm glad Mr. Bush brought up the fact that we can find stem cells without aborting babies. You can find stem cells anywhere, not just from an unborn fetus. Us conservatives were all about stem cell research. We just didn't want to kill babies to do so, and we also do not want the federal government funding the research.

Can we start drilling for oil in America? Can we?

I only questioned a couple of parts in President Bush's speech. One of them was global warming. Global warming is a non-issue. Unless you can convince China to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases being released, don't waste your time. Not surprisingly, the Democrats stood up and cheered loudly when the term "global warming" was brought up.

The President brought up an interesting stat. More than half of the World's food aid comes from the United States. I understand that we are global power, but can we stop being the global police? AIDS is running rampant in Africa, and it won't stop no matter how much money you send overseas.

I'm still not completely happy with President Bush's stance on immigration. I'm all about bringing Mexicans into America to give them jobs, but they should go through an extensive process before receiving a green card. Either they take these strides, or build a giant wall on the banks of the Rio Grande.

I personally think the recession is a bit phony. Just throwing that out there. Tell me what you think.

All in all, I think it was a good speech. President Bush has less than a year left in the White House until he hands it over to the next gentleman. His approval rating may be low right now (who regulates the approval ratings, anyway?), but I feel that in the next 10-15 years, George W. Bush will be vindicated as a great president. Wait and see.