The SOTU, Part II
I know I promised in my last blog entry to offer a running commentary on the State of the Union, but the hell with it. First, it's two days old now, which is ancient history out here in BlogLand. And second, the New York Times editorial on the speech pretty much covers any ground I would have, and does so with the sort of flair that has recently become so common in Times editorials. Someone else must have gotten the job of writing those in the last couple months, because they've taken on an ironic, mocking tone that's fun to read but -- up to this point -- has been wholly absent from the Gray Lady.
The post-SOTU coverage was telling. MSNBC gazed at its own navel, with Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Brian Williams and Tim Russert all offering analysis. At the same time "Fair and Balanced" Fox News' Brit Hume featured a roundtable discussion with conservative Roll Call editor Mort Kondracke, conservative Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes, ultra-super-uber-neo-conservative Bush apologist/Weekly Standard founder Bill Kristol and Fortune Magazine's Nina Easton, author of Gang of Five: Leaders of the Conservative Ascendancy. And even with such a "balanced" roundtable, everyone agreed Bush had a bad night. ... well, everyone except Kristol, of course, who -- if rumor is to be believed -- has a small explosive implanted in his heart that will go off if he ever disagrees with anything the president does or says anything that may be even obliquely seen as anti-Bush.
Bill Kristol, alleged cyborg time bomb
In any case, that's all I've got to say about the SOTU, except for the following absolutely true story (seriously, swear to God, this actually happened)
After watching the State of the Union speech, and polishing off a bottle of Chivas Regal in the process, I hit the rack. And somewhere in the middle of the night, I had a dream.
I dreamed that I was standing in the backyard of my house (I actually live in a condo, but in this dream, I was in this backyard, and I knew the house was mine.) The house was light blue, and had wood paneling. It had a wooden deck in the backyard, which was itself rather small, consisting of deep, green grass that, after only about 20 feet, rose steeply up a hill.
I glanced over to my right, and there was a similar house next door, with a similar deck, and on it were a group of suited men all standing around talking and drinking wine. I could not understand them.
I looked down, and saw that my dog had crapped on the lawn. And then I had a plastic bag in my hand -- you know how these things just suddenly pop up sometimes in dreams -- and I picked up the poop, knotted the bag, and placed it in a small pile of similar bags to the side of my deck.
Then I looked around, and noticed a couple more piles of shit. Busy dog, I thought. I picked those up too, but when I turned around from the pile of shitbags, there were a dozen more steaming piles of dung.
Impossible, I thought. And then, I looked up at the top of the hill, and standing there was a great Texas Longhorn bull.
Dung flowed from its ass like water, and then rolled down the hill into my backyard. I looked down, and it was up to my ankles. I moved for the back door of my house, but by the time I got to the deck, it was up to my waist, and I was stuck. I reached up to my mouth to try to cover it, but I already tasted the shit flowing in.
I woke up dry heaving.
And that's all I've got to say about the state of the union, whatever it means.