While Boston University College Republicans watched President George W. Bush’s State of the Union Address with calm attentiveness last night in the GSU, leaders in the BU College Democrats spent the speech lambasting almost every aspect of Bush’s comments at a gathering in a South Campus apartment.
Nearly 30 College Republicans came together to watch the speech in the GSU’s BU Academy Room, silently gluing their eyes to the room’s television screen for the duration of Bush’s comments. Members of the group reacted with applause at several moments during the speech, but most simply listened vigilantly with isolated expressions of approval.
School of Management freshman Jonathan Lipson gave an approving ‘thank God’ after Bush laid out his economic stimulus proposals, including numerous tax cuts.
Group members reacted skeptically to several of Bush’s proposals. Reacting to a Bush’s declaration that the United States would lead the way in improving technology for a hydrogen-powered automobile, College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Ryan Puzycki said, ‘that would be cool, but I’m not sure at a price of 1.2 [billion].’
Much of the room broke into laughter when Bush, after describing United States successes in arresting 3,000 suspected terrorists, said many other terrorists ‘have met a different fate’ and ‘are no longer a problem’ for the United States.
Several leaders of the College Democrats, meanwhile, loudly expressed their disapproval of Bush’s comments throughout the speech, beginning from the president’s introduction and lasting all the way until Bush had finished speaking.
When Bush mentioned increasing funding to education, the entire room burst into laughter.
Bush’s tax cuts were another source of opposition as the group attacked Bush for giving tax cuts to the wealthy. Their animosity quickly turned on their own, as Sargent yelled ‘sit your ass down!’ at the lone Democrat in the chambers who stood and clapped when Bush talked about tax cuts.
There was no shortage of personal attacks on Bush as well.
‘You’re gonna cut down all the forests to prevent forest fires?’ said Sargent, just before giving the middle finger to the TV.
Skepticism was obvious as Bush began speaking about terrorism.
Weis questioned why there was no action against North Korea even as they admitted to having a nuclear program, while there is still very little evidence against Iraq’s nuclear weapons program.
After the speech, several College Republicans said Bush’s speech was ‘powerful’ and set a clear course for action over the next year. Many said he did an especially good job explaining the case for a war with Iraq.
BU College Republicans president Katherine Borden said Iraq was the issue she most wanted Bush to address in the speech.
‘He needed to lay out the war in Iraq piece by piece by piece,’ Borden said. ‘I think he did that ten times stronger than he’s ever done before and it really just renewed my faith.’
SMG junior David Carl, chairman of the Massachusetts College Republicans, said the president’s stance on tax cuts ‘is a noble one.’
‘It’s extremely important for us to heed his words as college students, primarily because we will all be entering the job market within the next four years and we will need every penny we earn with our hard work,’ he said.
Bush’s encouragement of service within the United States was also important, Carl said.
Members of the College Democrats were less approving after the speech.
‘He doesn’t want a balanced budget, he just says that because it sounds good,’ Kassotis said about Bush suggesting he wants to balance the budget.
Several members of the group were also quick to point out that Bush would not be able to enact much of what he had promised.
‘The President said what was generally expected and if he follows through with finding all those social programs then I’ll be very happy,’ Weis said. ‘But as one Democrat I’m very skeptical.’
‘A lot of the stuff he did bring up I thought was good,’ said Kassotis, as Weis elaborated, ‘it’s the manner in which he wants to do it that’s the problem.’
BU College Democrats Treasurer and CAS junior Jason Dooley was most blunt about Bush’s performance.
‘We’re looking forward to a new president giving the State of the Union [soon] a Democrat,’ he said.
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