Source: ABC Australian Broadcoasting Company
United States President George W Bush will leave a ''daunting'' array of challenges for the next US president, ranging from the Iraq war to the economy, political analysts say.
Mr Bush has insisted he has plenty of unfinished business for his last year in office but he will leave some serious challenges for his successor in January, 2009.
The next president will need to chart a course for the Iraq war, navigate an increasingly tense relationship with Iran and grapple with political turbulence in countries such as Pakistan.
A worsening budget outlook, the expected lingering effects on the US economy of mortgage and credit crises as well as the rising cost of health care are just a few of the domestic issues that will immediately confront Mr Bush's successor.
William Galston, a scholar at the Brookings Institution think tank says the United States is facing an "arc of crises" extending from Lebanon and the Palestinian territories through Iraq, Iran and Pakistan.
"The next president is going to face a daunting menu of issues both at home and abroad," he said.
In his final State of the Union address today, Mr Bush focused on passing an economic stimulus plan and cutting wasteful spending.
He barely touched on some parts of the world. North Korea, a member of his "axis of evil" in 2002, did not rate a mention.
Many critics of the Bush Administration feel a major priority of the next president will be restoring America's world image after a battering over the Iraq war and detentions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"None of these problems are of the kind where you could snap your fingers and fix them,"says Bruce Buchanan, a political scientist at the University of Texas.
Meanwhile, the Democratic candidates in the race to be Mr Bush's successor have blasted his State of the Union address, dismissing his "empty rhetoric" and "failed policies".
"Tonight, for the seventh long year, the American people heard a State of the Union that didn't reflect the America we see, and didn't address the challenges we face," Senator Barack Obama said.
"Tonight's State of the Union was full of the same empty rhetoric the American people have come to expect from this President,"
Senator Obama's leading rival for the White House, Senator Hillary Clinton, labelled Mr Bush's speech "more of the same - a frustrating commitment to the same failed policies that helped turn record surpluses into large deficits, and push a thriving 21st Century economy to the brink of recession."
- AFP/Reuters
Ah, does anyone in the world who hears Bush speak really think that Americans are really "getting it"?
Do United States citizens have any idea at all how other other people perceive how we view their entire system - with Bush and the presidential frontrunners as the mouthpieces = planet reels from US abuses?
That opposition leaders from the US Congress would stand up and applaud Bush's delusional rantings and his lack of accountability to the damage that has been done is beyond the understanding of the world that watched the "state of the union".
We learnt little of the US "state of the union" but we sure did learn alot about their obsession with what the rest of the world last night.
Most of us, those with a smidgen of understanding of reality, wonder when the United States is going to wake up from its coma and DO something about the worst abusers of all time.
Most of us wonder why anyone would want to be the next President of the United States after George Bush and Dick Cheney.
The world is truly waiting for the "shoe to drop" as the "car is plunging off the cliff."
Eventually the laughable proposition that what's been broken and destroyed forever can be fixed, will have to be obvious.
There seems to be no leadership to help Americans figure out what to do about it.
It's truly time for the Bush bashing to stop, and the American people to come up with a plan to just stabilize America for what is about to come.
But even with this great opportunity to do this last night, no one, no one did.
The state of the United States union was very apparent last night - a big illusion still garbed in the finest furs going to a party that no one in the world wants to attend.
It's too intellectually boring and emotionally upsetting to contemplate a social function where Bush attends when he so clearly hears no one but Richard Cheney and a few speechwriters obsessed with the word "empower".
America "empower" yourselves - get rid of this man now. Don't wait on your "leaders" - they have no intention of the truth emerging. It's military keynesian, pursued rigorously by all who hold the pursestrings continues unabated and you will all find out the consequences.
The rest of us on the planet feel very sorry for America's "state of the union" and we regret that we will have to continue dealing with the neocons and whoever suceeds them. And putting in John McCain and a new team of provokers he would bring with is going to create a whole new set of problems. Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton seem to be without a clue how difficult it would be to "work with" the rest of the world.
Maybe its time to work diplomatically with Iran, stop creatinga fear of nuclear confligration as the major diplomatic tool kit, listening intently to what the rest of the world is saying and demanding be heard - we are all in this together and our planet must be saved while their is still time.
The United States' media does an incredibly bad job of alerting people to the coming dangers and appears incapable of asking the hard questions.
The only ones celebrating the US state of the union are the top 1% of America's elite and they have not played a very good game when the TRUTH finally emerges.
Don't expect anyone without a super large bank account to be applauding Mr. Bush or America anytime soon.
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