The Associated Press President Bush
delivers his 48-minute State of the Union address on Capitol Hill
Tuesday.
By Kelly Rayburn
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
President Bush, Tuesday, reiterated that the country’s
“mission against terrorism” is only in its first stages
and will likely extend well into the future, as tens of thousands
of terrorists still threaten the country.
“Our war on terror has begun, but it has only
begun,” he said during his State of the Union address.
Bush’s 48-minute speech was interrupted more than 70 times
with applause from Democrats and Republicans alike.
“Our nation is at war, our economy is in recession and the
civilized world faces unprecedented danger,” he said at the
speech’s beginning. “Yet the State of the Union has
never been stronger.”
Bush proceeded to highlight steps of progress since Sept. 11,
saying the country has started to rebuild New York City and
Washington D.C., has built an impressive international anti-terror
coalition and has captured and imprisoned thousands of
terrorists.
But Bush ““ making “no mistake about it”
““ also said the country’s work is far from over.
Using strong language, he condemned groups making up a
“terrorist underworld,” which still threatens
America.
He said nations like North Korea, Iran and Iraq are timid in the
face of terrorism and constitute an “axis of evil.”
In the war of terrorism, the United States will be deliberate
and will not act slowly, Bush said.
“The United States of America will not permit the
world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the
world’s most destructive weapons,” he said.
 MICHAEL MANTEL The Democratic Law Students Association
watches the State of the Union address. House minority leader
Richard Gephardt, D”“Mo., was equally tough in a message to
terrorists. “We are going to hunt you down and make you
pay.”
Bush went on to ask Congress to pass a budget which he said
includes a massive increase in military spending that will help
stimulate the economy.
On the topic of the economy, the applause was not nearly as
universal. Gephardt, supportive of Bush’s anti-terrorism
policy, was more critical of his economic policy.
“I refuse to accept that while we stand
shoulder-to-shoulder on the war, we should stand toe-to-toe on the
economy,” he said.
Bush’s economic stimulus plan has received some resistance
from Congressional democrats who favor a fiscal plan that does not
include such a large tax cut.
The Enron controversy, meanwhile, was noticeably absent from the
president’s speech.
In generic terms, the president urged corporate America to be
more accountable while calling on Congress to protect
worker’s pension funds.
As the president spoke, first lady Laura Bush sat by interim
Afghan leader Hamid Karzai. The president honored both during his
speech.
Across the country, including at UCLA, people watched Bush give
his first State of the Union with mixed feelings.
“For me the speech is a renewed faith in a committed
government to secure a safer life for Americans,” said Eric
Zdenik, a second-year history and political science student who
watched the speech from his dorm room.
Some Democratic Law Student Association members, watching the
speech from the law school, were more critical.
Third-year law student Jennifer Tobkin was upset with
Bush’s failure to mention Enron.
“He tried to spin it as if he had nothing to do with it by
addressing it indirectly,” she said.
UCLA history professor Mary Corey said the speech, like most
States of the Union, was more show than substance.
“(State of the Union addresses) have as much to do with
real politics as the Rose Parade has to do with the football
game,” she said.
What a president says in his State of the Union address is often
not what he is really doing, Corey said.
Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and
Richard Nixon all lied to the American public “in some
way” about the U.S.’s involvement in the Vietnam war,
she added.
Corey said she finds Bush’s call for huge increases in
defense expenditures and request for permanent lower taxes rather
bothersome.
With reports from Dexter Gauntlett and Robert Salonga, Daily
Bruin Staff, and wire services.