Thanks for Nothing, Dumbya's SOTU

I started out the day reading a few entries on a marvelous site put together by ProgressOhio.org entitled "This I believe is the Real State of Our Union." The overwhelming consensus of over 300 people who mostly live in Ohio (the should-have-been-swing state of the 2004 election) is that the State of Our Union Sucks - big time. People talked about the growing cost of gas, groceries, health care, and their shrinking or non-existent paychecks. They mentioned with disgust the ongoing occupation of Iraq and our collective desire to end that foreign entanglement and quit spending our children's and our grandchildren's futures in a country that never attacked us. They want to know whether there will be any safety net for them in old age, and how we will repair our shattered reputation abroad, not whether Iran may be, just may be, dreaming up a way to perhaps sometime in the future think about getting the plans to contemplate the beginnings of a civilian nuclear program... whaaaa? I wonder if the president has been briefed on the contents of his own NIE that stated clearly that Iran has ended their nuclear enrichment program over three years ago.

That set the stage for the lackluster performance that George W. Bush delivered tonight. I followed his talk along with the good and fun folks at Four Freedoms Blog (thanks mucho Mondo, Raine, Liv, VJ, & Tri). It helped me to stick it out and stay the course through another uninspired talk by an uninspirational president, I had to laugh at how much disgust was registered on the blog, how so much of the disgust we have expressed is more than six years old, and weighs so heavily on all of us who care so very much about our nation and feel as if we have been watching our country sink into quicksand.

Listening to Tweety (AKA Chris Matthews) wonder out loud why the president didn't use this opportunity to explain the connections between the stock market and the economy and the sub-prime housing fiasco - the anwer is simple, Tweety, the president can't explain something he himself doesn't understand. He is a moron.

Here are some of the stupidly more memorable lines (memorable only in the sense that they made me say "WTF?"):

"Embolden[ing] the purveyors of false populism" who writes this crap?

"American troops are shifting from leading operations to partnering with Iraqi forces and, eventually, to a protective overwatch mission." (translation: according to Bush/Cheney we will be in Iraq for freakin' ever).

Here are a few of the truly memorable (in the more widely understood sense of the word) lines that came out of pundits' and politicos' mouths in the aftermath of the president's nonsense:

"The speech was like boasting about his college record and listing nine incomplete classes."
Keith Olbermann, on the SOTU 2008

"This speech is out of touch, out of touch with the American people... he is totally out of touch with where the American people are. He was just checking the box like a salesman on his last day, just checking a box."
Joe Biden, on the SOTU 2008

"No challenge has been laid before the American people. No vision. Devoid of reality... This is the most disengaged speech I've ever heard."
Joe Biden on the SOTU 2008

"It was not a very memorable speech, not any very memorable lines..."
Pat Buchanan on the SOTU 2008

Here is a link to Governor Kathleen Sebelius's (Kansas) keen Democratic Response to the SOTU.
More later, I'm sure. This is just to get you all fired up first thing this morning...