FAQ About Tonight's State of the Union

As a public service, the Blogmeister at the Pond addresses some of the common questions about Bush's speech:

Q: Does Bush have any idea what in the hell he's doing anymore?
A: None whatsoever, but thanks for asking.

Q: Why is he dumber than a sack full of lug nuts?
A: Theories abound, but the most common idea is that (a) he's pretty stupid to begin with, and (b) he's systematically eliminated everyone around him who tells him anything he doesn't want to hear, no matter how good their ideas are. Thus, Richard Clarke, Colin Powell, Gen. Shinseki, etc. are all gone, and we're left with the Spelling Bee Champ as Sec. of State and Richard Hadley, whose pallor and effete demeanor strongly suggest he was brought back to life with a shot of green potion from the Reanimator.

Q: Can we get our money back from the Baker/Hamilton Iraq Study Group?
A: I see what you mean, but probably not.

Q: What new initiatives can we expect in tonight's speech?
A: Bush can only propose things that no one else thought of first, such as his unique idea of increasing American troop strength in Iraq by about 14%, thus increasing the ratio of U.S. troops from 140,000/25,000,000 to 160,000/25,000,000, or a net increase from .0056 of the population all the way up to .0064 of the Iraqi population.

Q: That sounds really dumb.
A.: It wasn't my idea.

Q: What about the environment? Anything new there?
A: Bush will propose a greatly enhanced use of ethanol to deal with global warming.

Q: So he's into the whole biofuel thing now? That seems like progress.
A: It's a breakthrough in the sense that Bush is acknowledging climate change. However, his idea is that Americans drink it as a way of dealing with the coming catastrophe.

Q: Is he like the worst President ever?
A: Probably, and I hedge my answer only because Bush probably has set the stage for tremendous problems in the future, and his hapless successors may look worse just because of what they're dealing with.

Q: How did it come to this?
A: A lot of people ask that. One clue is that Grand Canyon federal employees are now discouraged from talking about how old the Canyon is so they won't offend religious tourists.

Q: So who still supports him? Who are these 30% or whatever?
A: The glib answer is people just like him. Pay attention to his single veto, of stem cell research, and his position on abortion recently announced, which is that it should be limited to Carmelite nuns raped by HIV-positive psychopaths, provided the Sister seeks the procedure during the first trimester.

Q: Just how messed up is this country?
A: I'm sorry, we're out of time now. The speech is about to begin.