SOTU

My cell phone rings, it's my good friend and colleague Scott

Me: "What's up?"

S: "Is he saying anything interesting?"

Me: "Mike Rowe? Yeah, he's making barrels... not very dirty, but still somewhat interesting"

S: "No, Bush is giving the SOTU, isn't he?"

Me: "Yeah. I watched the fist 20 minutes then I got this dull buzzing sound in my ears... then my ears started to bleed... then I had a brief spasm and drifted in and out of consciousness for a while. I thought it would be most beneficial to me to turn it off and watch something else. What are you up to?

S: "All I can say is it deals with a lot of crap..."

Me: "Oh, so you were watching the speech?"

Okay, so maybe it didn't happen exactly the way I describe it above, I did watch most of the speech, then drifted back and forth between the speech and "Dirty Jobs." I have to give "President" Bush props for hailing Madame Speaker Pelosi... but overall it was the same rhetoric we've heard from him six times before, only this time he was a little more nervous than in years past.

What was good was the Democratic response by Freshman Senator James Webb (D-Va), one of the best Democratic responses I have ever heard.

For those of you interested, I present links for each:

SOTU

Democratic Response

Enjoy.

Twixt Dwindling Polls and the SOTU

With the State of the Union fast-approaching (it’s tonight – do you have your SOTU drinking game ready?) some would think that now would not be a good time to release new approval polls for “President” Bush… well… it would be a bad time for Bush and Bush-supporters, but a good time for anyone who thinks he’s driving this country further and further into the ground (such as me).

Two new polls were released this week, and both paint an even-more dismal picture for the “President” than prior months (hard to think that was even possible – but it is)

A Washington Post-ABC poll puts Dubya’s job approval at a scant 33%.

I’ll pause a moment to let that sink in…

It should be noted that only two presidents have ever had lower approval ratings while on the cusp of the State of the Union address: Nixon & Truman.

A CNN/Opinion Research Poll has his approval at 34%.

A new CBS poll shows yet another record low with a 28% approval rating. You read that right, 28%… I’ll pause again to allow that number to sink in.

So with these new numbers in their back pocket, what should one expect the administration to come up with for tonight’s performance?

Like previous years I would imagine more of the same, even though this time he’s facing a much-more cynical audience… with Congress and a good portion of the U.S. population tired of his ineptitude and piss-poor work.

One thing he will mention (besides mention Iraq, terrorism, OBL, etc a dozen or so times) is that he wants the U.S. to reduce gasoline consumption by 20% over the next 10 years…

In my opinion, this smells greatly like a last-minute, hail mary-type act of desperation… especially coming from someone who has made a lot of money and has a LOT of friends in the gas industry… makes one think that maybe, just maybe, the negative talk is finally starting to sink-into that un-level head of his…

But I doubt it…