Brief & Belated Thoughts on the State of the Union

- 1.   A nice change -

It is more fun to watch the state of the Union when Nancy Pelosi is sitting up there with Dick Cheney.  And interesting to see when one stands up and one doesn’t.

- 2.  Strongly strengthening up our stregnthly strongness -

In 2004, President Bush described the state of the union as “strong” seven different times, six times in 2005 and 2006.  This year he called us strong a paltry three times, leading me to the conclusion that we as a nation are becoming a bunch of sissies, or someone at the White House has invested in a Roget’s.

- 3.  It takes one to know one -

Obviously the best part of the State of the Union is the commentary afterwards.  My favorite moment of punditry came from Republic strategist Karen Hanretty, who, in an appearance on Fox News, wore a very tasteful 3 pounds of frosty silver pink lipstick, and tackled one of Washington’s toughest issues:  insincere hand-shaking.  That’s right, before and after the speech, congressional Democrats had the audacity to shake hands and exchange pleasantries with the President, even while disagreeing with his views.  Scoundrels!  Well, actually, I would call them scoundrels.  Karen called them media whores.

- 4.  Bush vs. Language: Round 7 -

I have mentioned this to President Bush before, but he seems to have forgotten.  “Democrat” is a noun; “democratic” is an adjective.  In fact, his speechwriters were even courteous enough to put the correct wording into the text of the address, but the busy President just could not be bothered with that final “ic” when he offered his obviously sincere congratulations to “the Democrat majority.”  A helpful hint: if you want to be a “Uniter, not a Divider,” you might want to go ahead and correctly pronounce the party that represents half of the country.  Nitpicky?  Only if I was pointing out the grammar and insult issues of someone other than the President of the United States.

- 5.  Ooohhhh Snap! -

President Bush also revealed a new health care plan that would take health insurance out of employment packages and have everyone buy their own independently.  An additional 3 million people would get coverage under the new plan, which sounds good until you remember that there are 47 million currently without health insurance.  Hilary must have been waiting for this moment for years.  After the speech she gave a response saying that the plan “robs Peter to pay Paul,” which is one of the epithets that was used against another healthcare intiative, back in the day…  Who’s laughing now, Harry and Louise!