All He Left Unsaid

On Tuesday night, the wretched specter of Sept.11 returned to Logan airport, departure point for the planes that took down the Twin Towers. Hours before George W. Bush delivered his State of the Union speech, a commercial aircraft had to be emptied, and its passengers re-screened, after a box cutter was discovered in a seat pocket.

During his speech, Bush attempted to tout the actions he has taken to secure the nation against terrorism. He spoke of the Homeland Security Department, increased border patrols, and 50,000 new airport security screeners in place across the country. He failed, of course, to mention the devious Total Information Awareness database that came along with Homeland Security, and he failed to mention how bitterly he fought to keep those 50,000 screeners out of the airports, because they would be federalized workers and thus able to unionize.

So much went unsaid during his speech. That box cutter at Logan, however, spoke volumes.

The first 25 minutes of the Bush speech were dedicated to domestic and economic issues. These are proving to be the Achilles heel of this administration, just as they were the last time a Bush occupied the Oval Office.

Bush began by touting the education reform bill passed several months ago with the help of Senator Ted Kennedy, but failed to mention the degree to which Kennedy has since distanced himself from that bill and the added flaws he never agreed to. He spoke of holding corporate criminals to account, failing to mention the incredible number of Enron executives -- including his beloved Kenny-Boy -- who still walk free and clear across the nation they defiled with their fraud and deceit.

Bush had words of great praise for the trillion-dollar tax cut he foisted during his first year in office, and rattled off a number of demands for Congress to make those cuts permanent. Don't wait one year or three years or five years, he said, but cement those cuts today. He failed to mention the soaring deficits these tax cuts have caused, and likewise failed to mention that the cuts did not one single solitary thing to help this flagging economy.

Bush went on to roll out his new tax cut, aimed at stock dividends, which will once again benefit the wealthiest Americans. He failed to mention how the budget will handle this added stress; likewise, he failed to mention the fact that a number of prominent Republicans, along with virtually every Democrat and a mob of economists, saw this new tax cut concept as essentially flawed and dead on arrival. Every man and woman who wants a job must have one, said Bush. He ignored the millions of jobs that have been lost by Americans since he took office.

After an inordinate amount of praise for his tax cuts, and no mention of how the budget can survive them, Bush went on to rhetorically spend billions and billions of dollars he does not have on hand. He proposed an end to the "marriage penalty," then went on to propose $1.2 billion in spending to develop hydrogen-powered automobiles.

He did not explain how he can afford any of this, and likewise failed to parse the hypocrisy of touting hydrogen cars while his new tax plan provides tens of thousands of dollars worth of write-offs for owners of gas-guzzling SUVs.

Another $450 million will go to a mentor program for children whose parents are in prison; $600 million will go to another drug treatment program. A whopping $15 billion will go to the noble cause of mitigating the catastrophic AIDS crisis in Africa, but not a word was spared to explain where this money will be found. The mother of all financial boondoggles, the Ballistic Missile Shield, got its due to no one's great surprise.

At one point during the reading of this fiduciary laundry list, Bush demanded fiscal responsibility from the government. A roving camera caught House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi bursting into laughter when that line came across.