Just to depress me, WashingtonPost.com's Dan Froomkin quoted today from Pres. Clinton's final State of the Union address:
We are fortunate to be alive at this moment in history. Never before has our Nation enjoyed, at once, so much prosperity and social progress with so little internal crisis and so few external threats. Never before have we had such a blessed opportunity and, therefore, such a profound obligation to build the more perfect Union of our Founders' dreams.
We begin the new century with over 20 million new jobs; the fastest economic growth in more than 30 years; the lowest unemployment rates in 30 years; the lowest poverty rates in 20 years; the lowest African-American and Hispanic unemployment rates on record; the first back-to-back surpluses in 42 years; and next month, America will achieve the longest period of economic growth in our entire history. We have built a new economy.
And our economic revolution has been matched by a revival of the American spirit: crime down by 20 percent, to its lowest level in 25 years; teen births down 7 years in a row; adoptions up by 30 percent; welfare rolls cut in half, to their lowest levels in 30 years.
My fellow Americans, the state of our Union is the strongest it has ever been.
That was given in January 2000. Seems like a million years ago, doesn't it?
(I ran this once before, in 2006, but when I read it in Froomkin's column, I thought it was worth repeating. You can read all of the State of the Union addresses here .)
