Assessing Bush’s State of the Unions through his Skutniks

Tonight, the President of the United States will try to avoid quacking, and limping, but that may prove difficult.

The Lenny Skutniks tell the tale of Mr. Bush’s push for relevance.

(Skutnik dove into an icy Potomac River in 1982 to save the life of the victim of a plane crash. President Reagan honored him with recognition at the 1982 State of the Union, and Skutniks have been a tradition ever since.)

President Bush’s Skutniks for his 2001 address to Congress were taxpayers and a mayor who supported the notion of a faith-based initiative.

2002 Skutniks were two flight attendants who thwarted the shoe bomber, and guests from Afghanistan including President Hamid Karzai, the minister of Women’s Affairs and the widow of a CIA officer killed there. There were no Skutniks in 2003.

In 2004, Skutniks were the daughter of a victim of Saddam Hussein’s brutality, and the president of the Iraqi Governing Council. In 2005, parents of a soldier killed in Fallujah were the president’s guests. In 2006, the parents and widow of  a Marine killed in Fallujah sat in the honored seats.

In 2007, some domestic Skutniks showed up again. In addition to a Silver Star recipient, Skutniks included the founder of Baby Einstein, the hero who saved a man from he subway tracks in Harlem, and a basketball star from the Congo who built a hospital in his native country.

Tonight, per ABC News’ Ann Compton, the president’s Skutniks will include an Indiana mom who faced foreclosure on her home, an Army Staff Sergeant seriously wounded in Iraq but now home and his unit will not be replaced, the mother of a Cuban journalist who is held as a political prisoner, an ER nurse, an HIV-positive mother from Tanzania, the head of a university in Afghanistan, Bob Dole and Donna Shalala who headed the Wounded Warriors commission, and a hero of the Virginia Tech massacre.

Some other tidbits:

The 2002 State of the Union was the first such speech available live on the web. 2004 was the first available in high-def.

The president’s two most famous lines from his SOTUs may be: "States like these" — Iran, North Korea, and Iraq — "and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world." And in 2003, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

In 2005, on his walk through the congressional masses after the speech, the president planted a wet one on Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.

Partly because of that kiss he soon became Sen. Joe Lieberman, Independent Democrat – Conn.

The President’s 2001 and 2002 addresses had the fewest words. Last year’s had the most.

Happy viewing!

- jpt