New York, NY -- State of the Union Rebuttal 2007
Not a rebuttal? D'oh!
New Orleans... interesting. President didn't mention that.
Challenge on alternative energy, but that sounded empty.
Playing the class warfare card, as only Webb has been able to play it in the last few years. Excellent. Nobody else has the balls. The CEO pay statistics are great -- people need to know that. The economy is fine for the rich, but not for the working class.
Wall St. vs. Main St.! I love it!
Webb didn't like the war from the beginning -- that's good to hear. Webb for President in 2016? VP in 2008? He's so good on this issue... (side note: rats, out of booze!)
"We are now held hostage to the predictable -- and predicted! -- disarray that has followed."
Man, I wish he'd call for an immediate withdrawal... not going to happen though.
Yes, Teddy Roosevelt spoke out against the class divisions. What Webb doesn't mention that part of his solution was taking the country to war (with Spain) to unite it... of course, most people don't even know that. I didn't even know that until a couple of months ago.
All in all, not bad!
New York, NY -- State of the Union 2007, Post XII
Random shout-outs from the President time! Eh... my fingers get a rest now.
New York, NY -- State of the Union, Post XI
Nukular -- drink!
Nancy was the first to stand on Darfur... are we really going to do anything? At least Bill Richardson achieved a cease-fire there.
AIDS in Africa -- that's in there every year. I remember this from 2002. Apparently, we've held back on most of the five billion he promised then.
HA! Dikembe Mutombo is next to Laura Bush? That's a long way from Ahmed Chalabi (whom, if you remember, Dubya didn't even know). Terk points out that Dik is Bush's new black friend!
New York, NY -- State of the Union, Part X
Increase the size of the military? That's just dandy -- for what, another war?
Volunteer reserve corps? Isn't that like, the National Guard?
Iran -- Drink!
Nukular -- Drink!
"The Holy Land." Not to me.
HA! Great face on Nancy!
New York, NY -- State of the Union, 2007 -- Post IX
Iraq... the surge. Not a lot to say, other than it's a bad idea and we're sending more of our boys to die.
One note: The President says that the surge relies on the Iraqi army "stepping up," but our military has said the the plan, in reality, is to send our troops into Baghdad with or without support from the Iraqi troops.
"Backed by Iran..." Uh oh. Fortunately, that's his only mention of Iran so far.
September 11th -- drink! I did...
Nancy does not look happy! Some Dems are not standing to applaud, including Nancy.
"Whatever you voted for, you did not vote for failure." No, we voted to get the fuck out, Mr. President! Not that you care. "Support the troops." Nancy has to stand when he talks about supporting the troops -- she doesn't have a choice.
New York, NY -- State of the Union 2007, Post VIII
HA! That face on Condi is priceless! She does not look happy.
"Elected a democratic legislature." Redundant, no?
He mentions the Sunni attack on the Golden Mosque without mentioning that the Shiite death squads had been attacking Sunnis for at least fifteen months prior.
(Note: the "sorta-gay looking" guy was Ron Wyden (D-OR)... I like him; just didn't know what he looked like. Sorry, Ron!
New York, NY -- State of the Union 2007, Post VII
The main event -- terrorism.
First mention of 9/11. Drink!
"Take the fight to the enemy." -- Drink!
Note that nearly none of these "plots" that he's talking about have ever been seriously corroborated. Also, There were no Islamic attacks on US soil in the six years preceding 9/11. Why does the absence of such attacks in the six years hence indicate success? I'm sure I've covered that before.
Talking about Hezbollah -- he fails to note that they have not killed a single American on American soil. Counting up... 0, 0, 0. Scary!
Wicked, kill Americans, kill democracy, gain weapons to kill... you should be drunk now!
New York, NY -- State of the Union 2007, Post VI
Who was that sorta-gay looking guy applauding next to John Kerry?
Immigration -- I have almost no opinion on this, but I'm pretty sure he's alienating half of his party by being so lenient on them Mexicanos...
Energy -- Just like 2006, token statement about dependence of foreign oil. Last year was "American is addicted to foreign oil."
YES! NUKE-U-LAR! If you're playing that particular drinking game now, take a shot...
Ethanol ethanol ethanol... "woodchips to grasses." Last year at this time, we all heard the word "switchgrass" for the first time. So why are we only really encouraging the corn growers? That's the least efficient way to make ethanol.
What does "modernizing fuel economy standards mean?"
This is all so token... doubling the supply of the SPR?
HAHAHAH!!! "Global climate
change" At least he mentioned the phrase, but then immediately changed the subject.
New York, NY -- State of the Union, Part V
Education -- No Child Left Behind, vouchers... same as every year. Blah blah blah.
Health care -- Sorry, Mr. President... private health insurance is not the best way. All he's doing is to shift the burden of health insurance costs from the employer to the employee. People are not going to buy health insurance if they think they're healthy and the choice comes down to food or insurance. Health savings accounts are a bad idea for the same reason.
Has he said anything yet, other than "Madame Speaker" that isn't a rehash of every other State of the Union address he's done to date?
New York, NY -- State of the Union, Post IV
Uh oh... "economic reforms" from the mouth of a Republican!
Balancing the budget -- good. Without raising taxes? No way. No friggin' way. We've lowered them so much, and that's screwed us. Only reason we've "cut the deficit in half" is because it was so darned high to begin with. It's still much, much higher than it was before this guy was President.
Earmarks -- Good joke about C-Span. Note that there are five times as many each year as there were before Bush was President. McCain stood up for Bush's remark about cutting earmarks in half. In half? Can't we get them back to the way they were in the early '90s?
Entitlements -- Medicare and Medicaid do not need fixing; they're very efficient. So is Social Security, but its funds have been spent on other things. Bush just wants to privatize these "entitlements," of course.
New York, NY -- State of the Union, Post III
Bush has the smile of someone giving or accepting condolences... the infamous smirk is gone, for the moment.
I love how the Supreme Court Justices show up in robes!
It's nice that the President gets to use the phrase, "Madame Speaker," but should this country have waited until 2007 for this? The President seems gracious, though.
"Decisions are hard..." For the Decider? No...
He said "Democrat majority." Keep in mind that when a Republican uses "Democrat" rather than "Democratic" as an adjective for members of the Democratic party, that's considered a slur. Reagan started it. Why? It's a degradation of branding. Believe you me, he did it on purpose. He started doing it earlier this year.
State of the Union 2007, Post II
Important note, for anybody that is watching but doesn't know yet -- the President's approval rating, depending on whom you ask, is down somewhere between 28 and 33 percent!
New York, NY -- State of the Union 2007, Post I
Was supposed to be watching with my girlfriend, but she couldn't make it, so I'm watching Dubya by myself with nobody other than my good buddy, Johnnie Walker...
The President's starting soon... did anyone notice a shot a few minutes ago on MSNBC behind the scenes which included non one other than Presidential candidates -- Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Sam Brownback.
Also, did you see the glow of Nancy Pelosi juxtaposed with the dour glower of Cheney? Man, this is so much different than the last few SoUs.
Olbermann and Chris Matthews -- good combo! Turn to MSNBC for commentary if you're not watching already. Who can match these guys?
New York, NY -- State of the Union Live Blog
I doubt anybody's going to read this today, as I haven't even posted in almost two weeks, but just wanted to let all of you know that I'm hoping to live blog the President's State of the Union address, as well as Senator Jim Webb's rebuttal.
This should be good... the last time the two of them met, Webb told the press he wanted to punch the President in the face!
