Reid, Pelosi Echo NPI Themes

The Democratic counterpoint to the Bush 2005 SOTU was right on the money and to the point. Senator Harry Reid, D-Nevada, the Senate Minority Leader, and Nancy Pelosi, D-California, the House Minority Leader, delivered the response for the Democrats.

Among some of our favorite lines:

Senator Reid: Unfortunately, much of what the president offered weren't real answers. You know, today is Groundhog Day. And what we saw and heard tonight was a little like that movie "Groundhog Day." The same-old ideology that we've heard before - over and over again. We can do better.

This is similar to what we said in our last post (see below): The 2005 SOTU was a classic Bush speech. It didn't offer anything new or insightful. It's more of the same: empty promises and an extremist agenda.

Senator Reid: When he gets off track, we will be there to hold him accountable. And that's why we so strongly disagree with the president's plan to privatize Social Security. Let me share with you why I believe the president's plan is so dangerous...it's wrong to replace the guaranteed benefit that Americans have earned with a guaranteed benefit cut of 40 percent or more...The Bush plan would take our already record high $4.3 trillion national debt and put us another $2 trillion in the red. That's an immoral burden to place on the backs of the next generation.

Reid is absolutely correct when he calls the plan's consequences an "immoral burden".

Representative Pelosi: We have never heard a clear plan from this administration for ending our presence in Iraq. And we did not hear one tonight. Democrats believe a credible plan to bring our troops home and stabilize Iraq must include three key elements.

• First, responsibility for Iraqi security must be transferred to the Iraqis as soon as possible. This action is long overdue. The top priority for the U.S. military should be training the Iraqi Army. We must not be lulled into a false sense of confidence by the administration's claim that a large number of security personnel have been trained. It simply hasn't happened, but it must.


• Second, Iraq's economic development must be accelerated. Congress has provided billions of dollars for reconstruction, but little of that money has been spent to put Iraqis to work rebuilding their country. Infrastructure improvements in Iraq are more than just projects; they give Iraqis hope for a better future and a stake in achieving it. And they contribute to Iraqi stability.


• Third, regional diplomacy must be intensified. Diplomacy can lessen the political problems in Iraq, take pressure off of our troops, and deprive the insurgency of the fuel of anti-Americanism on which it thrives.

Pelosi hit all the right tones in her segment on national security, also drawing attention to the fact that the Administration has underfunded port security, border security, and protection for nuclear power plants and other terrorist targets.

We'll post a link to the full text of the speech shortly.