One of the administration's favorite rhetorical devices over the last five years has been the straw man. Faced with the unenviable task of defending its policies, it consistently has chosen to instead attack imaginary enemies of its own construction. Sometimes it describes situations that clearly do not exist in the "reality-based" world.

This year's State of the Union address was a master class on the technique. I've already discussed the Manimal Strategy, in which Bush ignored the complex scientific and ethical issues and scored easy points with his base by attacking unnamed, cackling, Dr. Moreau-ish mad scientists creating "human-animal hybrids."

Here's some more interesting examples from last night:



Bush returned to this theme many times over the course of the evening. If you oppose his foreign policy, he suggested, you must be an isolationist! Why, it's self-evident! The irony, of course, is that Bush's is one of the most insular and unilateral foreign policies in history. He cares not for what others think -- he does what he wants. This is sort of the evil twin of isolationism. The concept of engaging with the world rather than dicating to it is sadly not in his repertoire.



Translation: If you oppose me, you like tyranny. Bush's base loves this kind of ridiculous cowboy talk. What, there's tyranny? We oughta do something about that! Get a posse together!



Here's Bush at his most disingenuous. Over and over, he insists that 9/11 Changed Everything in completely ludicrous ways. "We couldn't rely on the oceans to protect us!" Funny, I don't recall oceans being considered an effective defense against Soviet ICBMs. Here, he boosts his attack on phantom "isolationism" by claiming that US disinterest in world affairs caused 9/11, when anyone paying attention could tell you that it was our *non*-isolationist foreign policy that al Qaeda was gaining legitimacy by denouncing. At the risk of pounding the point into the the ground, he's inventing history to suit his agenda.



Another classic. While I have no interest in defending the tactics of terrorists, any honest observer would have to concede that their motives are more complicated than "hating freedom." Did Tim McVeigh "hate freedom"? Does the sniper hiding outside the abortion clinic simply "hate freedom"? Shifting gears, does someone who supports a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage "hate freedom"? It's a convenient shorthand to make his foreign policy seem remotely coherent, but that's about it.



More criticism of the imaginary "give bin Laden a hug" advocates. In Bushland, the choice is not among different ways to confront terror, the choice is support Bush's way or endorse terror.

He goes on like this at length -- "leaving an assaulted world to fend for itself", "we will never surrender to evil", and so on. None of it is new, of course, but it's all he has. What he and his followers see as stirring rhetoric is in reality an attack on a position no one is advocating.



In another lengthy section of the speech, Bush paints a rosy picture of Iraq that seems completely at odds with the continuing mayhem and sectarian strife. 47% of Iraqis support attacks on U.S. troops. Of course, noting such things is not goodthink:



The lines between arrogance, delusion and megalomania blur deliriously.

After that, there's a maudlin tribute to one of the soldier's killed in Bush's elective war and a laundry list of supposed democratic successes in the Middle East, including the hilarious notion that Saudi Arabia is taking "the first steps of reform." (He also stumbles through a warning to the democratically elected Hamas party that they'd better shape up.)

If that weren't enough, he makes his almost gleeful contempt for us clear as glass by hauling out a warning to Iran cut-and-pasted from the 2003 SOTU speech:



I have to admit after that my attention wavered, as I was distracted somewhat by thrusting my head into the wall. From reviewing the transcript, it seems that he promised the same foreign aid package he's hyped for years now, before launching into a defense of domestic spying, which we've covered more than adequately over the last couple of weeks.

Finally, the foreign policy section wraps up with an odd statement:



Odd, because it's widely assumed that Reagan's capitulation after the Beirut barracks bombing was a great morale boost for Arab terror. But whatever, reality has nothing to do with this. It's just empty noise to lull the base into a blissful state of righteousness and boost GOP candidates in the fall elections.

Tomorrow, we'll look at the domestic policy half of the speech, as freshly minted Supreme Court Justice Alito lurks in the crowd.