December 28, 2006 Issue

These are strange times. I recently received a call from a friend in Karl Rove’s office with an unlikely request. I have been asked to submit a speech to be used as President Bush’s upcoming State of the Union address. So here goes:

My fellow Americans, I stand before you tonight, as I have for each of the past six years, to inform you of the current state of our country. I will also speak to you about the remaining two years of my presidency.

I have made mistakes during the course of my tenure as your president. Everyone makes mistakes, but mine have been more costly than most.

It takes an entire country to fight a war, not just an army. I know now that our country is overwhelmingly opposed to the continuance of our struggle in Iraq. It is not fair to our soldiers or the good people in Iraq for this war to continue. It is also not fair to the American people because this war has prevented our country from addressing the pressing issues we face here at home.

Unfortunately, this war was predicated on poor intelligence from almost all of our sources. As president, I am responsible for the oversight of our intelligence community. On every level, we failed. We never found weapons of mass destruction, we weren’t prepared for the insurgency following the invasion of Iraq, we didn’t properly handle the embarrassment of Abu Ghraib, our policy on torture was wrong, and — as it turns out — we didn’t even have operatives who spoke Farsi, which made it difficult to gather any meaningful intelligence from within Iraq. We are no closer to finding Osama Bin Laden now than we were on September 12, 2001 and for that I am truly sorry.

The last American to commit an act of terrorism within this country was Timothy McVeigh, a veteran of our armed forces. He killed hundreds of Americans with a rental truck, fertilizer and diesel fuel. I should never have even declared a War on Terrorism. That is a battle we can never win. We will never be fully protected because a few people using common and cheap materials can carry out acts of terrorism.

Having no prior experience in governing at the federal level, I surrounded myself with experienced political people, many from my father’s administration. Unfortunately, I have learned that experience isn’t everything and while I should have reached out for fresh ideas and new approaches, I ended up with stale policies and outdated personnel.

The handling of the post Katrina period in New Orleans continues to be bungled. I owe an apology to the people of Louisiana regarding the immediate aftermath of that storm and the current waste of money through FEMA, which has proved to be a totally inefficient arm of this government.

As a conservative I have to apologize to my fellow Republicans for straying from our stated values. This government is growing every day. As opposed to less governmental intrusion on our day-to-day lives, we now have more. I have repeatedly said we need to lower taxes. Unfortunately that is no longer possible. There is no way to spend the money we are currently spending in Iraq and not raise your taxes. It is also hard for me, as the leader of this country, to encourage our business community to operate in a fiscally conservative manner when we have done just the opposite with the civilian contracts we have awarded to contractors in Iraq. No administration in the history of this country has presided over more graft, greed and illegal gains among our publicly traded companies than this one.

For the first time in my life, I recently visited a penitentiary. For those of you who have never spent an afternoon in a prison, I suggest that you do so. I am now acutely aware that the War Against Drugs has been no more successful than the War Against Terrorism.

I only have two more years at my post in Washington. I promise during that time to do the following things:

Even though I do not personally approve of same sex marriage; I will not speak to that issue again. As a conservative, I believe that decision should be left to individuals.

Even though, like most people, I do not like the idea of abortion; I will leave that decision to the women who must make that decision.

Even though I have courted the approval of the National Rifle Association my entire political career. I will now side with our police departments all across this country who favor gun control. The brave police officers of this country are the ones who are most affected by handguns and I will acquiesce to their belief that hand guns must be removed from our streets.

Even though I personally do not use illegal drugs anymore; I realize the penalties that exist for non-violent, personal use of recreational drugs are not reasonable. Minimum mandatory sentencing for possession of drugs must end.

My life has been a privileged one. I have spent most of my time among the extreme upper class of this country. After Hurricane Katrina, I spent time traveling through other parts of the Deep South, and through Appalachia and through some of the worst urban areas of this country. I was shocked at how many people live in poverty. What was particularly shocking was that most of these people weren’t black. I found that the huge majority of people on welfare in this country are actually white. The level of poverty that exists in this, the most affluent nation in the world, is not acceptable anymore.

This New Year affords us all the chance to admit our mistakes, make amends to those we have harmed, and to attempt to start anew. God bless you all, and God bless America.

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