[lbo-talk] factchecking SOTU

[Doug Henwood]

Washington Post - February 1, 2006

Assertions on Spying, Jobs And Spending Invite Debate

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer

In his State of the Union address last night, President Bush waded 
right in the middle of the debate over his warrantless domestic 
eavesdropping program, making a number of assertions that have been 
subject to intense debate.

For instance, Bush strongly suggested that the Sept. 11, 2001, 
attacks could have been prevented if the phone calls of two hijackers 
had been monitored under the program. This echoes an assertion made 
earlier this year by Vice President Cheney.

But the Sept. 11 commission and congressional investigators said the 
government had compiled significant information on the two suspects 
before the attacks and that bureaucratic problems -- not a lack of 
information -- were the main reasons for the security breakdown. The 
FBI did not even know where the two suspects lived and missed 
numerous opportunities to track them down in the 20 months before the 
attacks.

Bush also asserted that "previous presidents have used the same 
constitutional authority I have." But the most recent example cited 
by the administration -- involving actions by President Bill Clinton 
-- is hotly disputed by Democrats who say the current and past 
situations are not comparable.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which required the 
executive branch to get approval from a secret court before 
conducting wiretaps within the United States, was silent on 
warrantless physical searches of suspected spies or terrorists. So 
the Clinton administration asserted that it had the authority to 
conduct such "black bag" jobs, including searches of CIA turncoat 
Aldrich Ames's house, which turned up evidence of his spying for 
Russia.

Clinton later sought amendments to FISA that brought physical 
searches, as well as wiretaps, under the FISA framework. Bush has 
never sought such amendments, and he did not publicly acknowledge the 
program until it was revealed in news reports.

In other sections of his speech, Bush omitted context or made 
rhetorical claims that are open to question.

Referring to Iraq, he said the United States is "continuing 
reconstruction efforts." He did not use the word "spending" because 
officials say the administration does not intend to seek any new 
funds for Iraq reconstruction in the budget request to be submitted 
to Congress this month. About $18 billion was previously budgeted, 
and $16 billion of that has been committed, but nearly a third was 
devoted to security and law enforcement.

At another point, Bush said the number of jobs went up by 4.6 million 
in the past two and half years. There was a reason he chose not to 
start from the beginning of his presidency -- that would have brought 
the net number of added jobs down to 2 million over the five-year 
period.

Bush also made a pair of contradictory pledges on the budget. He said 
the budget deficit -- which has soared during his presidency -- is on 
track to decline by half by 2009. But he also urged a permanent 
extension of his tax cuts, due to expire in five years. The 
Congressional Budget Office says this would send the budget deficit 
soaring after 2011.

The president said he has reduced "the growth" of non-security 
discretionary spending. This only means it did not increase as much 
from year to year. Moreover, overall discretionary spending has 
exploded during his tenure, especially when military spending is 
included. White House budget documents show that overall 
discretionary spending has climbed from $644 billion in 2001 to $840 
billion this year, an increase of more than 30 percent.

Looked at another way, discretionary spending as a share of the 
overall economy is at its highest level in 13 years, according to the 
CBO.

Bush made a plea for cutting imports of oil, saying it is "often 
imported from unstable parts of the world." But the two biggest 
suppliers of oil to the United States are very stable neighbors -- 
Canada and Mexico. Only three of the 10 biggest suppliers are from 
the Middle East -- Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Algeria.

At several points in his speech, Bush made odd rhetorical leaps.

He repeatedly warned against the dangers of "isolationism," but the 
Democratic leadership has not called for isolationist policies, and 
polls show that the American public has little interest in them.

Bush ended his address with a stirring image that "every great 
movement of history comes to a point of choosing." But then he said, 
"The United States could have accepted the permanent division of 
Europe, and been complicit in the oppression of others."

This is historically misleading. At the end of World War II, the 
United States allowed the division of Europe between Soviet and 
Western spheres, though it drew the line at giving up West Berlin. 
And the United States permitted the Soviet Union's grabbing of large 
parts of other countries -- or even whole countries, such as the 
Baltic states.

Bush should know this. In May, he flew to Latvia and declared that 
the United States bore some blame for "the division of Europe into 
armed camps" -- what he called "one of the greatest wrongs of 
history."

Researcher Zachary A. Goldfarb contributed to this report.