The Man Who Learned Too Little
In his final State of the Union, Bush makes more empty promises.
By Fred Kaplan
The sad thing about President George W. Bush's final State of the Union address is that he seems to have learned so little about the crises in which he's immersed his nation so deeply.

His first words on foreign policy in tonight's address reprised the theme of previous addresses: "We trust that people, when given the chance, will choose a future of freedom and peace." He cited, as "stirring" examples of this principle, the "images" of citizens demanding independence in Ukraine and Lebanon, of Afghans emerging from the Taliban's tyranny, of "jubilant Iraqis holding up ink-stained fingers" to celebrate free elections.

One waited for the president to invoke the lamentable flip side of these images, the retreats and retrenchments that followed (perhaps the "challenges" ahead?)—but he didn't. Is he still living in the dream world of the spring of 2004? It's a pleasant world, but it had gone up in smoke by that summer. If we were truly serious about promoting freedom, it would be useful to explore the lessons of those hopes as they were not only stirred but then crushed. As with his previous State of the Union addresses, this was not seen as a time to face reality.

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