Well, I’ve been gone for the last few days as my parents are in town visiting, but I’m back tonight for a brief posting.
SOTU address tonight, which in my house means one thing. Drinking party!!! It’s evolved over the past few years, but this year had decorations, door prizes, drinking game rules, snarkalicious food and fun for all.
The rules are modified from the rules here, although, imho, mine were better. We had Iraq Study Group Fruit Cocktail, Undocumented Immigrant-made churros (yum), Sam Adams (a beermaker AND a patriot) beers of all varieties, Mexican beers (illegally immigrated, I’m sure), pretzels, and much, much more. Elton was unable to make the gathering tonight, but I still look forward to meeting him in person.
Last year, after the festivities, George Bush blew up my water heater. Tonight, as I get ready for bed, all of my plumbing is secure. I wish I could say that I feel that the nation is as secure. (Nice segue, huh?)
Same crap, different day. Well, actually, a different sequence of the same crap, for a different day, but still, yawn. Is it just me, or did he seem to be trying to be exuberant and determined?
It was a bit different that he spoke of a domestic agenda first. Now, it was pretty lame of him to try to score points by shilling for things that were in the Democratic Party’s “First 100 Hours Agenda”, but whatever. I guess if I were him, I wouldn’t want to lead with Iraq either. By the midway point, when many people may have been snoozing safely. he moved into the foreign affairs agenda. By this point, I was so buzzed that I couldn’t keep track of my drinking rules anymore, but I think he said Iraq or Iran about a billion times, which is coincidentally, about the same number as the number of Iraqi civilians that have died so far due to this war. But I digress. Beer does that to me.
Then, after depressing everybody and trying to say that everything was going fine up until that mosque got blown up, he moved in to the feel-good section of the speech to bring it on home. That’s right, the special invited guests. Who can criticize Dikembe Mutombo, or Baby Einstein, or a “Subway Hero”, or an actual military hero? Nope, it’s all feel-good, teflon-based applause leading up to a “the state of the union is strong” and a “good night everybody, it’s been great to be here!!!”
But then the smackdown by Senator Jim Webb (D-VA), as video-linked below, by E. Other drunken friends at our party, who missed the rebuttal, asked me what he said. I summarized it as saying, “1. My military credentials are beyond reproach. 2. Past Republican presidents have managed to do the right things in times of war. 3. If you don’t do likewise, we will show you the way.”
For what it’s worth, I thought it was the best Democratic Response to a SOTU that I have seen in many years. Good job, Senator Webb.
Tags: Bush Administration, Domestic Issues, Energy, Foreign Affairs by desertbug
1 Comment »
Molly Ivins was one of my favorite writers. She was honest. She said what was on her mind. She was relentless with George W. Bush or as she called him, Shrub. Liberal was compliment to Ivins, she mentioned this point in several columns and in a couple of her books. As I was researching my book, her book, Shrub, was one of the first that I read. It was well researched. Well, written and funny. Very Funny. She was one of the first authors to point out that Bush may not be a very good president. He wasn’t a very good governor. She was 1000% correct.
