Obligatory State of the Union thread

[erimir]

So, Bush gave his State of the Union address.

It seemed awfully derivative of his previous speeches. I'm waiting on the transcript tho, because I hate having to wait through all that sycophantic clapping shit.

I'm sure that all of you unamerican people pay close attention to this too.

And for your amusement, here's a couple parodies of his previous speeches:

http://homepage.mac.com/jholzner/iMovieTheater43.html

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/presaddress2.shtml

[cappuccino]

I only watched the first 20 minutes of the address. I wandered away when it became clear that Bush was adding nothing new.

[viscousmemories]

I only watched the first five minutes or so, but turned it off because I literally can't stand his whiny voice. According to the narrarator Cindy Sheehan was supposed to be there (at the invitation of a Democratic Senator, I think) but she was "detained" (not arrested, they assured us) by the Capitol Hill Police for allegedly attempting to unfurl a banner in the gallery.

[Dingfod]

pResident Boosh

Blah, blah, blah, 9/11. [standing ovation] Blah, blah, blah, lie about Social Security. [standing ovation on one side] Blah, blah, blah, 9/11. [loud applause and cheering] Blah, blah, blah, terrists. [vigorous clapping] Blah, blah, blah, War on Terra. [standing ovation] Blah, blah, blah, American people must give up some freedoms for us to protectorize your civil rights. [A smattering bit of applause, growing louder when the applause sign is lit] Blah, blah, blah, Scalito will Supreemerize the court. [standing ovation on the Right] Blah, blah, blah, 9/11. [Standing ovation]

[Joshua Adams]

Hmm... some highlights would be that he favors looking into alternative energy sources including nucular power, and calls for a bipartisan committee to investigate what to do about the retiring baby boom generation.

Of course, he mentioned 9/11, terror, WMDs, Iran's future as a democracy, "our creator", "redefining marriage", "abstinence" as a strategy for stopping the spread of "HIV AIDs". He called for a ban of human cloning and human/animal hybrids, and asked Congress to renew the Patriot Act. He criticized isolationist and protectionist foreign policy.

Well, that's all I've got off the top of my head, if you remove the incessant platitudes about "our values" and "our goals".

[California Tanker]

The usual stuff about the war on terror has gotten so commonplace that I tend to tune it out these days. The alternative energy bit got my attention though.

NTM

[Adam]

Originally Posted by California Tanker

The usual stuff about the war on terror has gotten so commonplace that I tend to tune it out these days. The alternative energy bit got my attention though.

Is it some sort of tradition to throw one curveball topic into a SotU speech (that's a serious question, btw)? Didn't he pull sex tourism out of his ass as a major SotU issue a few years ago?

[California Tanker]

I guess it has to be. If there's nothing really remarkable about the speech, it tends to get consigned to the graveyard of history pretty quickly.

I've read the transcript now. There's not much I disagree with, but a lot of that is because there's not much new or unexpected. The bit about the Baby Boomers seemed logical enough, the energy thing was worth noting, but other than those two, I don't see much that is really worth a speech.

NTM

[Godless Dave]

I never even watch speeches by presidents I like, least of all the State of the Union. It's just meaningless posturing and pandering as far as I'm concerned.

[Ensign Steve]

Let's take all the retirement-age baby boomers and use them in our human-animal hybrid experiments.

[ChuckF]

Originally Posted by Adam

Is it some sort of tradition to throw one curveball topic into a SotU speech (that's a serious question, btw)? Didn't he pull sex tourism out of his ass as a major SotU issue a few years ago?

IIRC that was at his address before the UN when he started asking other countries to chip in some on the whole Iraq debacle. So he stuck the sex trade in there, as if one who opposed the American misadventure there would be in favor of the sex trade.

[Waluigi]

I didn't watch it, and I refuse to read any news about it.

With the public speaking skills he has, Bush would do well to take a lesson from Thomas Jefferson and just mail his state of the union to Congress.

[livius drusus]

It's not just his horrible public speaking, it's the horrible speech writing that gets to me. It's like they're trying so hard to coin a new "better angels of our nature" or "not because they are easy, but because they are hard" but it just ends up sounding so painfully trite and flat, like the opening statement of an 8th grade debate.

Here's an example I found in the (obviously misnamed) NYT quote of the day:

"In a complex and challenging time, the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting, yet it ends in danger and decline."

This and that, then this and that, then this and that. Do you see what I mean? Ugh.

[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.

[Sock Puppet]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

Here's an example I found in the (obviously misnamed) NYT quote of the day:

"In a complex and challenging time, the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting, yet it ends in danger and decline."

This and that, then this and that, then this and that. Do you see what I mean? Ugh.

Not only that, it's also a ridiculously poor choice of metaphor. Isolationism and protectionism imply restriction, i.e., narrowness, not a broad road. It'd be nice if they'd at least give us well-written vacuity, rather than this hack material. But while we ride the trolley toward good public relations, we often see the station ahead, but get derailed by coins of our limitations that are placed on the track.

[livius drusus]

I blame the children.

[aequitas]

Bush telling us that we are overly dependant on oil. What a joke. It was pretty funny though seeing the Democrats stand and applaud when Bush made reference to the death of his social security reform.

[wei yau]

I totally forgot about the speech, got wrapped up in a game of Civlization III. (BTW: The world's a better place now, China rules over all.)

liv, you're right about the lousy speech writing. It is trite, unoriginal and just wrong. For example, I'm getting sick and tired of the whole "If you're talking to al Qaeda, we want to know about it". That's not the point, it never was and will he please just shut the fuck up already.

If someone here is talking to al Qaeda, you should know about it. You should also use the perfectly legal and suitable tools right in front of your face to find out more about it. Asswipe.

[TomJoe]

I watched Crash. Didn't even know there was a SotU address last night.

[California Tanker]

Civ III? I thought Civ IV was the standard these days?

NTM

[wei yau]

Yeah, Civ IV is the latest. But, I've not graduated to that level yet. I also need a new graphics card.

[Ari]

Originally Posted by Ensign Steve

Let's take all the retirement-age baby boomers and use them in our human-animal hybrid experiments.

When he mentioned human-animal hybrids or whatever I was like WTF? Bush does know that the Sci-Fi channel doesn't actually predict the future... right?

I say Steve Jobs should be President, at least he knows how to give a keynote speech. I can see it now,
George Jobs: "and one more thing..." *audience cheers* *George jobs pulls out a thin object from his pocket* "The Lobbyist nano, a hifi wifi integrated system. It allows lobbyists to instantly deposit bribe money into your offshore account while listening to their favorite tunes. It comes in two versions, Republican red, preloaded with Falwell and Robertson's latest ramblings and Democrat blue, preloaded with U2 tracks and audio of Al Gore's latest book, read by the man himself, for 20 hours of non interrupted sleep." *audience cheers*
"I am also happy to report, After being renamed iSoc pro, my social security plan passed without a glitch."

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Ari

When he mentioned human-animal hybrids or whatever I was like WTF? Bush does know that the Sci-Fi channel doesn't actually predict the future... right?

I think he was talking about things like this. Of course, the average listener (including me, actually...I'd actually read about partially human chimerae before, but was too dumbfounded by his mention of 'hybrids' to put two and two together until somsone else suggested it to me) probably isn't going to think 'chimerae for medical research' as opposed to 'scary godless crossbred monsters'. I take it this is going to be the next big thing aftere the stem cell controversy, so I"m not all that surprised to hear him throwing a bone to his base constituents on the topic.

[Ari]

That's what I assumed too but being Bush I wasn't sure what he might have been thinking when he said that.

[Shake]

Alright, so where's the transcript? I mean, I trust Warren enough to believe his version, but I'd like to read it myself.