It’s the Little Things That Matter George W. Bush’s State of the Union

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but was last night’s State of the Union Address a crock of crap or what?

We have heard from the media all about his "plea for unity" but you didn’t have to listen very far into the president’s speech to hear the message he was really sending- about 2 minutes and 57 seconds to be exact. A nice, subtle "up yours" to the good folks across the asile.

If you READ New York Times transcript, the President says:

We enter the year 2007 with large endeavors under way and others that are ours to begin. In all of this, much is asked of us. We must have the will to face difficult challenges and determined enemies, and the wisdom to face them together.
Some in this chamber are new to the House and the Senate, and I congratulate the Democratic majority.

But if you LISTEN to the NPR recording, (there is a link on this page the President says:

We enter the year 2007 with large endeavors under way and others that are ours to begin. In all of this, much is asked of us. We must have the will to face difficult challenges and determined enemies, and the wisdom to face them together.
Some in this chamber are new to the House and the Senate, and I congratulate the Democrat majority.

If you are not a political junkie, you probably missed it, it was that subtle…just one little part of one little word. DemocratIC vs. Democrat. But it spoke VOLUMES. And what it said...wasn't very nice.

What did it say? Well, here’s a quote from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_%28phrase%29)

Democrat Party is a political epithet used by some conservative commentators and by some past and present leaders of the Republican Party (including the Republican National Committee, the White House, and President George W. Bush) in speeches and press releases instead of the name (or more precisely, the proper noun) Democratic Party.

Many members of the Democratic Party object to the term. Liberal commentator Hendrik Hertzberg writes, "There’s no great mystery about the motives behind this deliberate misnaming. 'Democrat Party' is a slur, or intended to be - a handy way to express contempt. Aesthetic judgments are subjective, of course, but 'Democrat Party' is jarring verging on ugly. It fairly screams 'rat'."

One Republican to use this term widely was Joe McCarthy, according to the Wikipedia article, others have included Tome DeLay, and, of course, Rush Limbaugh fires it off quite often.

So, even while the President- the well known Uniter not Divider- stood on the Rostrum last night, pleading for Unity, he shot a very definite, but subtle bird at the new DEMOCRATIC Majority. Using the word "Democrat" was just a nasty little gesture made when the teacher wasn't looking.

So, all the talk of unity was, in the end, just more smoke and mirrors…but then, you knew that already, didn’t you?

PS- Afer I finished writing, I noticed that I was not the only one to catch this. Go to Media Matters for more on this:

"Democrat" as an adjective, which New Yorker magazine senior editor Hendrik Hertzberg identified as an attempt to deny the opposing party the claim to being "democratic," or as Hertzberg wrote, "to deny the enemy the positive connotations of its chosen appellation."