Is Bush bold, or watered-down Schwarzenegger?

Commentary: Health care, energy on agenda

As President Bush stands before Congress on Tuesday evening to give his report card on the nation, the biggest change in the state of the union is that he is no longer the undisputed decider.
Congress now has Democratic leaders, installed in part because the voters repudiated Republican policies on a host of issues, primarily the war, but also on pocketbook issues such as health care, energy and the environment, education and immigration.

Bush's State of the Union address will recognize the new political reality, emphasizing the issues that Americans care most about, the ones that helped the Democrats win back control of the House and the Senate last November.

There's one more political reality that Bush can't ignore: his lame-duck status. Rather than present the usual laundry-list of dozens of plans for the next four or eight years, this speech will be limited by design to just a few ideas that can be accomplished in the two years the president has remaining.

The president will challenge the Congress "to step up to the plate and to deal responsively and creatively with real problems that Americans care about," his spokesman, Tony Snow, said Monday.

Snow said Bush will propose "bold" new ideas on health care and energy.

The details are sketchy, but it looks like Bush's bold proposals are watered down compared with Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent initiatives on expanding health care or on combating global warming. Democrats in Congress have even bolder ideas.....