Oh, and if you want to try a drinking game, here's my hastily made up State of the Union Drinking Game:
Drink once whenever:
1. Bush mispronounces a word.
2. Drink (2) if that word is "Nuclear".
3. Drink (2) if the word is "terror" ("terra") and stomp a foot on the ground and say "terra firma" or some Latin-based joke.
4. Take a shot whenever he refers to the Democratic Party as "Democrat Party" then flick off the TV.
5. Drink, take a shot, and flick off the TV if he lies about the FISA bill (ie, he says that he'll be unable to listen to terrorist calls if the Senate doesn't pass his bill. Which is bullshit as FISA will NOT expire. The expanded provisions that let him listen to your calls and mine with no warrant will expire Friday if nothing else happens, but NOT FISA.)
6. Drink if he makes a bad religious metaphor.
7. Burn your couch on the front lawn if he comes out and says anything like "I've lied to you all, and in the interest of doing the best thing for America, I am stepping down as President, and turning Dick Cheney over to Interpol to stand trial at the Hague. He's a bad dude...hehehe."
8. Oh, and the killer: waterfall drink for every standing O.
8:45-Great line from Rock of Love II, "We had a serious moment...and then I looked down at her breasts..." I'll say this for Bret, he's honest.
8:50-It's a rerun, but I think Kristy Jo is gone (I missed it Sunday.) Something about saying "oh, I'm still married," should get you gone. Oh and "will you stay here in this house continue to rock my world" is such a great cheesy line. Used ironically of course.
8:54-please send the French chick home. That accent is too bad to be real, and apparently all she brings to the table is getting naked. I may be wrong, but someone getting nice "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" royalty checks probably has no trouble finding incomprehensible, personality-less women willing to get nude for him.
8:57-Roxy? He sends her home? She was one of the hottest girls there, and seemed to lack the bitchiness prevalent in many of the girls on shows like this. But, he did ditch the French chick.
Ok, time to switch over.
8:59-Dancing with the Whothehellcares is still on! Gah! My eyes, the goggles do nothing!
9:00-I like how the ABC announcer emphasized "Final" in saying "the FINAL state of the union address." In a year many of us will know how Krusty the Clown felt when announcing Poochy's death. Charlie Gibson missed a branch, unless Dick Cheney isn't showing up tonight.
Of course there's no "nostalgia" here. Bush has proved time and again that he really doesn't pay attention to history (he also mentioned that he was like Lincoln and Lincoln was disliked as he left office. For those of you that hated history, Lincoln was actually pretty popular, then was shot.)
9:03-Lyndon Johnson is the one to hate for all those previous years when the State of the Union address preempted your favorite show. With the Writer's Strike still ongoing, that's not as big a factor this go round.
Is it immature of me to snicker at the combination of the words "stimulus" and "package"?
9:06-He's at ease and enjoys these things? And still continues to butcher the spoken English language? Damn Bartlett, you could've said he gets a little nervous and folks would maybe go a little easier on the whole "nukeular" thing.
I'm not going to play my drinking game tonight...I'd...die.
I think we just saw the closest thing to a smile Dick Cheney's ever done...
9:10-Well there goes my hope that he'd throw a bone to Idiocracy fans and start out with "shit..."
Now when he says "cooperate" does he still mean "do whatever I want, otherwise I veto it"?
9:12-Wages are NOT up you lying SOB! Unless he's counting the minimum wage...
Hate to break it to everyone, but this "stimulus" bill will do not a damn thing for the economy.
$150 billion is 1% of the GDP.
Ok, the IRS joke was funny. But if you made 8 figures last year, and I hear you complain about paying 29% or whatever, I'd really want to kick you in the nads (but I won't, because you can afford really nice lawyers.)
Technically, letting your tax cuts expire isn't raising taxes George.
9:15-"Belowted"? But seriously, this could be the blind squirrel finding nut moment. It took him over 7 years, but now he wants to balance a budget. And cutting earmarks, if done bipartisanship, well, that I can get behind.
So does this mean Congress can debate those FISA ad-ons in the open too?
Wouldn't patients and doctors make better decisions if there weren't profit-driven insurance companies denying coverage?
Again, what about the insurance boardrooms making the decisions about your health? No mention at all of them...
9:20-Did he seriously say, with a straight face, that "no one can deny the results" of No Child Left Behind? It's only succeeded in selling more crap textbooks brother Jeb has money in.
One of my best-friends taught at one of those private, faith-based schools. His advanced English students barely knew what a pronoun was. Unless you're planning on going to Bob Jones or Regent U, they can't prepare you for anything post HS.
9:22-From somewhere in Texas, or possibly the great beyond (I don't know if Perot is alive or not) the mention of these South American Free Trade Agreements causes Perot to mention "that giant sucking sound" again. Yes, let's have more trade agreements, because NAFTA worked so well.
Columbia eh? Someone wants some hastily-imported blow...
Michael Chertoff should not be shown on TV. Unless it's his appearance as one of the Gentlemen in the classic Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode "Hush"
(I think Chertoff is the one on the left.)9:27-wait, did he just admit global climate change exists? Did someone kidnap him and replace him with a lookalike? Boortz'll be so distraught tomorrow.
Congress should only approve the funding when they cut the "Intelligent Design" bullshit out of it.
Dick and Nancy both look bored.
The framing behind him is terrible...red and white stripes, without blue, just makes me think of a barbershop.
9:31-Wow, he mentioned NOLA. Didn't see that coming. Heckuva job Brownie.
If we weren't spending half a trillion dollars in Iraq, we could afford the influx of Baby Boomers to Social Security and Medicaid.
Or, if like every other administration fighting multiple wars, we raised taxes to pay for it.
Just a thought/rant.
A thought I'd like to hear from some folks in D.C.: "we should also try and work with Mexico to try and alleviate some of the reasons people so adamantly want to get the hell out of there."
His first three examples of "freedom" incidentally--we didn't really have anything to do with.
9:36-Perhaps when he was at Yale or in HS, some girl named Tara dumped him and that's why it's a War on Tara. (Yeah, I know.)
Prediction for what won't be said here: "if we'd just stayed focused on Afghanistan, that whole resurgent Al Queda in Waziristan wouldn't be going on. My bad about Iraq folks."
Ten months ago, 75% of the Iraqis wanted us to just leave. But that was never really said on TV, so it can't be true right?
UPDATE: turns out Ross Perot is still alive and kicking. Thanks Wikipedia!
Imagine how great things'd be for the Iraqis if Blackwater wasn't killing them--another thing you won't here tonight.
In 2002, Al Queda wasn't IN Iraq. So it's not like we're rooting out some deep-festering group here.
9:45-What worries me is will we offer enough support for our troops AFTER the fight. (That projected total cost, per Harper's: $500,000,000,000).
9:50-I can feel it, here comes the Appeal to Fear, where he takes the "They swear to attack Washington" part and tries to scare Congress to pass that bullshit FISA ad-on.
Well, maybe not just yet...
Still waiting to hear about Pakistan, which seems to be the true royal clusterfuck and greatest threat we've got (they have nukes, and Al Queda basically has their HQ in their mountains, though it's sort of it's own place, called Waziristan, now.)
More history for you: Iran was a democracy, up until the UK and the US got rid of their elected leader and propped up the Shah.
9:59-New rule: take a drink and refer to yourself as Bob Dole until 10:02.
Oh and I had to leave the room when he started in about FISA. I can't take that level of blatant lying, gross manipulation of the facts and bullshit.
10:00-I guess that's a program that Dick and Nancy have. When I first saw it, and Cheney was reading it, I saw the cover and thought he had a copy of The Handmaid's Tale, and that he was likely reading it for ideas.
10:02-He wrapped it up just in time to end the Bob Dole stuff. And did he really not mention Pakistan at ALL? Wow...
I'm going to keep watching, because I've heard nothing but good things about Gov. Kathleen Gilligan Sebelius, but I think I can take no more of the liveblogging (and I need caffeine like mad, as George Will's sonorous voice is putting me to sleep.) Goodnight, and Good Luck.
