[livius drusus]

Hey Dave, if you have access to Times Select content, your dreamgirl Sarah Vowell has a column on the speech.

He he...

But let us conclude by looking on the bright side. Some Americans used to waste their free time writing to the White House or phoning their Congressmen to inform government officials of their opinions. Now a concerned citizen may get her point across to Washington about the Iran situation by simply complaining via cellphone to her friend Brent, who called to brag that he met Ambassador Joe Wilson at a party at Sundance.

A pessimist might complain that thanks to N.S.A. wiretapping, American civil liberties are woefully at risk; an optimist might point out that sure, things are bad, but they are so bad that even the crabby conservative strategist Grover Norquist has been driven to sweetly rooting for his political enemies, telling The San Francisco Chronicle last week, "For 40 years we always assumed the left would take care of our civil liberties." He added, "If there were problems, the Democrats were the ones who would push back. But now with a Republican Congress and a Republican in the White House, the A.C.L.U. can't get their calls returned."

The state of our union? United — at least on one small thing. Despite our differences about the war, the economy, the environment, health care, education and Gulf Coast relief, let us come together to celebrate the sole issue we, as a nation, agree on: Anderson Cooper sure has swell hair.