State of the Union

Nice work, overall. I enjoyed the shot the President took at Teddy Kennedy. (Oh, come on. Do you think that segment on the importance of civility in debate was random?)

Bush is trying so hard not to smirk, and it just isn't in his nature: that goofy grin keeps sneaking back onto his face.

I'm wondering if anyone out there who voted for John Kerry perceived this, or whether perhaps it's a sign of bias on my part, but I really felt that G.W. at least tried to act the part of a parent adjudicating a dispute between children when he spoke of current Republican-Democrat tensions. With the mood so tense in the Senate lately, I felt he was attempting to communicate a sense of "don't make me stop this car!"

Most of my GOP friends won't be happy with his approach to immigration, but I am. Malkin, for example, probably gagged when he spoke about the guest worker program.

Energy policy: the olive branch here was in his not uttering the phrase "drilling in ANWR," but I found the "green" segment of the speech less startling than many probably will. Some of these government subsidies will indeed turn into boondoggles, but the fact remains that we need to lessen our dependence on foreign oil, so there is a need for a multipronged approach. And it wasn't like Bush was out there wearing his metaphorical Birkenstocks, either: he emphasized the fact that nuclear energy has to be part of the new game plan.

Hamas and Iran: These were both compelling moments in the speech, and the only two times that W. looked directly into the camera. He sent the same message twice ("do not fuck around with us, because we're serious"). And he delivered it forcefully.

And it was a nice touch, saying a few lines to the Iranian people. It's critical that we make the distinction between unfree people and the governments that oppress them.

And watching Mrs. Clinton, who could barely keep from rolling her eyes as she usually does during these addresses, I began to think some of us have exaggerated the threat she supposedly poses to the GOP: this pose of being above it all is not one that wil endear her to the American people. Her conduct on these occasions makes it harder to believe she's learned anything from her indisputably brilliant husband.

She is not, at heart, a real politician. She just happened to marry well.