Staid Of The Union

Tonight is President Bush's State of the Union speech, and according to the national media, he has already crashed and burned, despite the fact that he hasn't yet actually delivered the speech. (Also, according to the national media, Hillary Clinton has been elected president in 2008 and The Departed has won the Oscar for Best Picture.)

Now, I voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, and I have more or less stood by him for the duration of his presidency. One of the things that appealed to me and the rest of the red staters was that unlike his predecessor Bill Clinton, who seemed to govern based on public opinion poll, Bush was not afraid to what he thought was right, even if it alienated half of the electorate. But even I feel that there is a limit to how far out on a limb Bush should go.

In law school, we often speak about the idea of legitimacy. For example, even if it carries the force of law, legislation must more or less mirror the morals of society, or else it will be impossible to enforce. Even the Supreme Court, the ivory tower to end all ivory towers, must keep a hand on the pulse of the nation to avoid being cast as a fellowship of aloof, irrelevant eccentrics. I am no expert on military strategy, and I certainly do not profess to know all the facts necessary to fairly second guess Bush's new Iraq policy. However, the troop escalation Bush has proposed does strike me as contrary to what three-quarters of Americans want to have happen. Even though he's a second-term president, Bush does have accountability to the American people. If he wants to be able to govern effectively and avoid being labled as a crackpot and written off as ineffective, he needs to listen to the electorate, at least once in a while. Maybe history will indeed vindicate him on this Iraq plan, but he may end up sacrificing the rest of his platform in the process.