If any further proof were needed after Zell Miller’s pit bull performance<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> the other “There was nothing in the speech last night that suggested a new era of frankness from the So said this morning’s The Washington Post had a mixed editorial<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> — mixed only The Post said his domestic proposals “were short on detail.” For instance, he failed to say that In the Midwest, the Chicago Sun-Times did not have an editorial — at least not online. The In the West, The Los Angeles Times headlined its I don’t see a Wall Street Journal editorial about the speech online, not even for paying Postscript:<\/STRONG> New York City was held in contempt of court and
\nnight that reality and Republicans do not share the same universe, it was demonstrated once again
\nfrom the podium in Madison Square Garden by a president so proud of his Texas swagger that he
\ninevitably creates the impression of a prevaricating gunslinger.<\/P>
\n
\nWhite House, or hope that any … fundamental problems” — immigration reform, stem cell
\nresearch, polarization of the electorate, to name just three — “would be approached with anything
\nbut the ‘my way or the highway’ attitude Mr. Bush has used on issues like tax cuts and Iraq.”<\/P>
\n
\nwhich described his domestic, so-called proposals for the future as “extremely vague
\nconcepts” and “troubled, half-finished initiatives.” As for his judgment of current
\nconditions, it consists of outlandish exaggerations. For example, “he presented the dangerous and
\nchaotic situation in Iraq as a picture of triumphant foreign policy on a par with the Marshall Plan.”
\n<\/P>
\n
\nbecause it began by saying he “offered a robust defense of his first term and a forceful case
\nfor giving him a second,” but then proceeded to undermine its own premise. “The chief
\ndifficulty with Mr. Bush’s speech,” it said, “wasn’t so much what he put in, but what he left out:
\nthe missteps and difficulties that have marred his first term and will make many of the goals he
\ncited difficult to obtain.”<\/P>
\n
\nreforming Social Security his way “would cost $1 trillion or more over the next decade” and
\nwould be “daunting” — to put it mildly — now that his “tax cuts have piled up record deficits.”
\nDeficits? What deficits? He never mentioned them, even though he “promised to make his
\nreckless tax cuts permanent.” And while railing “against federal spending,” he “proposed a raft of
\nnew spending programs and tax credits.”<\/P>
\n
\npositive
\neditorial<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> in the Chicago Tribune, however, begged to differ with its
\nEastern rivals. It hailed “the agenda Bush outlined” as “a refreshing balm for voters frustrated by
\ndecades of nanny-state proposals that hinge on big government solutions” and said his notion of a
\nso-called “ownership society” would “offer intriguing alternatives.”<\/P>
\n
\n“Consistently Inconsistent” and pointed out in the first paragraph: “His well-written speech would
\nhave been more convincing if he had not actually been president for the last four years.”<\/P>
\n
\nsubscribers, which is just as well. I can imagine what it would say, but I’d rather not. It
\nwould ruin my Labor Day weekend.<\/P>
\n
\nordered to release hundreds of anti-Bush protesters following “one of the largest mass arrests in
\nthe country’s history,” far exceeding the number arrested at the 1968 Democratic Convention in
\nChicago. A judge ruled that the city had failed to provide the speedy justice required by law. In
\nNew York, detainees under arrest must be arraigned within 24 hours or be released. <\/P>
\n