The State of the Union

I didn't see the speech the other night. These events tend to make me very excited-- a strong, almost-Iraqi excited-- and I fear for the public good. Last year, after Bush's speech-capping exhortation for baseball players to stop using steroids, I went up to the roof of my apartment building and unloaded a full jacket of armor-piercing bullets from my AK. I missed the airliner I was aiming for, but nailed an elderly Mexican seamstress. It didn't matter. I don't speak Mexican.

I did, however, just read the prepared text of this year's SOTU. And here is what I found out:

The state of the union is good. To make it better still:

• We must eliminate Social Security insurance for everyone under 55 years of age.
• We must malign and ridicule those who have suffered from asbestos exposure.
• We must rely on fossil fuels and nuclear power for our energy needs.
• We must criminalize homosexuality.
• We must suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous judicial nominees.
• We must continue to neglect the AIDS pandemic.
• We must try to stop executing colored folk who've been wrongfully convicted and/or falsely tried. (See? He is compassionate)
• We must remain allies with Saudi Arabia.
• We must stay in Iraq for a very long time to come.
• We must employ the rhetorical device of evoking the words and ideas of FDR whenever we wish to undo everything he did.

And that's about it. My favorite passage, in its entirety:

"The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else. That is one of the main differences between us and our enemies. They seek to impose and expand an empire of oppression, in which a tiny group of brutal, self-appointed rulers control every aspect of every life."

Speaks for itself.