|
WASHINGTON: Democrats blasted President George W. Bush’s State of
the Union speech Monday, with presidential candidates Barack Obama
and Hillary Clinton dismissing his “empty rhetoric” and
“failed policies.”
“Tonight, for the seventh long year, the
American people heard a State of the Union that didn’t reflect the
America we see, and didn’t address the challenges we face,”
Senator Obama said of Bush’s annual keynote policy speech to
Congress.
“Tonight’s State of the Union was full of
the same empty rhetoric the American people have come to expect from
this president,” he said in a statement criticizing Bush’s
“failed politics and policies of the past.”
Obama hit out at Bush for his economic stimulus
plan announced last week that “leaves out seniors and fails to
expand unemployment insurance.”
“We know it was George Bush’s Washington
that let the banks and financial institutions run amok, and take our
economy down this dangerous road,” he said.
Obama’s leading rival for the White House,
Senator Clinton, called Bush’s speech “more of the same, a
frustrating commitment to the same failed policies that helped turn
record surpluses into large deficits, and push a thriving 21st
century economy to the brink of recession.”
“We need immediate relief for people who are
losing their jobs and facing skyrocketing home heating costs. And we
need a comprehensive solution to the housing crisis,” said the New
York senator.
Obama and Clinton, facing down in an
increasingly bitter race for the Democratic White House nomination,
both took aim at Bush’s insistent stay-the-course policy in Iraq.
“President Bush isn’t satisfied with failure
after failure in Iraq; he wants to bind the next president to his
failed strategy by unilaterally negotiating with the Iraqi
government about the future of the US-Iraq security relationship,
including the possibility of permanent US bases in Iraq,” Clinton
said.
“Tonight we heard President Bush say that the
surge in Iraq is working, when we know that’s just not true,”
Obama said.
“The only way we’re finally going to
pressure the Iraqis to reconcile and take responsibility for their
future is to immediately begin the responsible withdrawal of our
combat brigades so that we can bring all of our combat troops
home.”
In a gentler official party response to Bush’s
address, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sibelius asked the Republican
president to cooperate with the Democrats, who control Congress,
rather than defy them, as he did in his speech Monday, threatening
vetoes of any tax and spending legislation he opposes.
“Join us, Mr. President: in working together
with Congress to make tough, smart decisions, we will regain our
standing in the world and protect our people and our interests,”
she said.
Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Speaker of the House
of Representatives, and Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid
said Bush offered a vision “too small for many of the challenges
we face.”
“The president gave no hope for an end to the
war in Iraq, approaching the five-year mark, with no political
reconciliation, and too great a toll on our troops, our trust, and
our treasury,” the two Democrats said in a statement.
Responding to Bush’s claim that the Iraq troop
hike of the past year has “achieved results few of us could have
imagined,” Pelosi and Reid riposted that the surge has failed in
its original objective: “to have the Iraqi government achieve the
political reconciliation necessary to create a stable Iraq.”
Senior Senator Ted Kennedy said Bush’s speech
showed why “Americans must be more convinced than ever that it’s
time for change.”
“They’ve heard seven long years of broken
promises from this administration,” Kennedy said.
“We didn’t hear a real plan for tackling
health care or education, our economy or the housing crisis, or even
the war in Iraq, but we have a chance this year to elect a president
who does,” said Kennedy, who earlier Monday endorsed Obama’s
quest for the Democratic presidential nomination.
-- AFP
|
