the idea free presidency

This week, President Bush is dusting off his immigration policy in typical fashion: all vagueries and platitudes, no specifics. Why no details, it is not as Bush tells the press, because of his view of the constitutional roles that the executitve and legislative branches play, rather, it is a way to sneak in radicial changes and radical policy that would otherwise be unpopular with either his base or the American people. This way he can say one thing to the Pat Bucanan's of his party and another to his Chamber of Commerce friends.

But what is really striking about all this is that the President has done absolutely nothing innovative. Everything he has proposed is either an idea from his 2000 campaign, something he stole from moderate democrats (NCLB, Rx drugs, homeland security, exit plan for Iraq, etc.), or retreads from past presidents (like JFK and the Moon, Reagan and Star Wars).

The only aberation was 9/11, and most of that legislation was created out of the Ashcroft Justice Department and the Cheney West Wing, dedicated to torture, privacy evasion and tossing out the Geneva Convention.

I am all for people doing what they campaign on, but it wasn't like Bush's campaign promises were fulfilled either. Washington has become more corrupt, more partisan, and the White House has been dragged further in the mud by George W. Bush's presidency and tactics than Bill Clinton's. Foreign policy promises of 2000 were banished rapidly and 9/11 was no excuse for the massive military buildup and invasion of Iraq. If anything, the military needed to get more nimble and smarter, not more missles and tanks and planes and helocopters. Environmental promises were banishes, as were all efforts to work with Democrats and concilate.

Instead of having a bold new idea of how to get himself out of his unpopularity, Bush went to the bare cubard and found one dusty can of "immigration reform" which is sure to make the Tom Tancredo's of the world very upset and never really please Hispanics or big business really.

The much ballihooed State of the Union will be a laudry list of fake accomplishments, vagueries and platitudes. I expect nothing new out of this president since he never arrived with any real ideas in the first place.