2007 State of the Union Address
The 2007 State of the Union Address was given by the 43rd president of the United States, George W. Bush, on January 23, 2007, at 9:00 p.m. EST, in the chamber of the United States House of Representatives to the 110th United States Congress. It was Bush's sixth State of the Union Address and his seventh speech to a joint session of the United States Congress. Presiding over this joint session was the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, accompanied by Dick Cheney, the vice president, in his capacity as the president of the Senate.
Date
It was the first address to a Democratic-controlled Congress since 1994. Furthermore, the speech marked the second time that a Democrat sat behind President Bush during a joint session of Congress and the first time at a State of the Union address. Traditionally, the Speaker of the House and the Vice President (the President of the Senate) are the only individuals on the rostrum with the President. However, in a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001, following the September 11 attacks nine days earlier, president pro tempore Robert Byrd, a Democrat, took the place of Vice President Cheney, who was at an undisclosed location.[1] As the first female Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi is also the first woman in American history to stand on the podium during a State of the Union address.
President Bush began his address by recognizing the new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi:
Attendance[edit]
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was not present because traditionally a member of the President's cabinet, a designated survivor, does not attend in order to ensure presidential succession in the event of an emergency. Only four Supreme Court Justices attended the speech: Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, and Anthony Kennedy. Senator Tim Johnson and Congressman Charlie Norwood were not present because of serious health problems, but were acknowledged with applause. Johnson recovered and returned to work by September, while Norwood died on February 13, 2007.
Critical response[edit]
Democratic response[edit]
Jim Webb, a Vietnam War veteran and Senator from Virginia whose son was serving in Iraq, delivered the Democratic response from Capitol Hill, the second year in a row for a Virginia politician. Virginia Governor Tim Kaine delivered the Democratic response in 2006. It lasted less than nine minutes, as expected, ending at 10:24 EST.
Webb said he hoped the Bush administration is serious about health care, education, and revitalizing the imperiled nation, as represented by New Orleans, Louisiana, following Hurricane Katrina (President Bush did not mention Katrina or New Orleans in his Address). He emphasized that corporate profits are not being fairly shared, stating that chief executive officers make over 400 times that of workers, on average. Therefore, it takes an average worker over one year to make as much money as his boss makes in one day. He advocated a policy that would begin to remove United States troops from Iraq, pointing out that polls show the majority of the American people do not support the direction of the Iraq War or the president's strategy.[4]
Libertarian response[edit]
Steve Kubby, a California politician and declared candidate for the 2008 presidential election, delivered an unofficial response to the address for the Libertarian Party. Kubby criticized the president's policies on the economy, education, and foreign policy, which he referred to as "foreign military adventurism."[5]
Conservative response[edit]
The Wall Street Journal reported in an article the following Thursday that conservatives were upset and felt abandoned by Bush's shifts on immigration and health care, and quoted a high-ranking official with the American Conservative Union saying that "the president left a lot of conservatives shaking their heads".