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So... yesterday I decided that rather than blog the State of the Union, I'd wait a day and blog the bloggers. I expected there to be controversy over the sppech, and even if was of the predictible left/right variety, I thought it might be interesting.

But it isn't. Because even Bush's fiercest supporters over at The Weekly Standard and The National Review aren't happy.

Take, for example, this intro from NRO's TJ Walker:

So how did President Bush do in his State of the Union Address? At the risk of being institutionalized against my will, I make the following assessment of this speech: George W Bush is arguably a better public speaker now than were Presidents Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and George H. W. Bush in their prime. Such a statement just a few short years ago would have been laughable, but not today. Whether you love or loath George W. Bush, you can not deny that he has learned how to read a teleprompter. His smirks are gone. The squinting has disappeared. The nervous rushing through a speech is a distant memory. Tics are nonexistent. The first half of his speech was completely devoid of any stumbles whatsoever. (Granted, he did stumble over ten words in the second half, but none were disruptive.) Indeed, Bush was devoid of Bushisims.

I've heard of lowering the bar, but good god... that's like putting the bar on the floor, deciding it isn't low enough, and then digging a ditch 10 feet deep just to be sure the man can clear it.

And that was NRO being nice to the guy. Their offical editorial response was lukewarm at best, but the response from their bloggers was far worse. John Derbyshire described the absurdity of a conservative announcing plans for a government program to encourage competitiveness by comparing it to Stalinist Russia, Mark Steyn labeled it "little more than a nice job", and KLo apparently thought she was passing along praise when she offered up a reader's comment that suggested the Bush speechwriters had read and riffed off Reagan's momentus 1964 "A Time for Choosing" speech.

Erm... hello? That's only one of the most famous speeches in the entire history of the conservative movement, so suggesting that they were using it for inspriation is like suggesting Billy Graham looks to the Gospels before he preps a sermon. Am I somehow supposed to be impressed by that?

So given that even the natives are restless on this one I thought I'd confine my remarks to three subjects: oil, manimals, and Cindy Sheehan.

Let's start with Bush's surprising revelation that our nation is "addicted to oil." Surprising? WiredOpinion, among others, thinks not. Although the language is new - and let me add, definitely noteworthy, and perhaps even Carter-esque - the president has discussed energy independence in virtually every SOTU since he first took to the White House. Not that he's done anything about it of course. So aside from the word choice, it really didn't seem all that noteworthy

Which is why I was surprised to see Andrew Sullivan initially buying into this nonsense. But after some time to think it over, Sully has come to his senses, and now that he has he's pissed. In particular he's not happy with the addiciton metaphor, a theme that he sees as playing perfectly into the new vision of conservatism that views governmen't as an active paternalistic force.

But here's the amazing thing. This portion of the speech got huge play all over the nation. Scratch that, all over the world. And so yes, virtually everyone blogged it, and it was the first thing I heard when my alarm clock went off this morning. Now maybe I was crazy, but it seemed to me to be a pathetically transparent political ploy, and given the way things typically work I expected to argue about this for weeks on end. Was he serious? Wasn't he? What does it all mean?

Apparently that's not going to happen

Administration backs off Bush's vow to reduce Mideast oil imports By Kevin G. Hall Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally. What the president meant, they said in a conference call with reporters, was that alternative fuels could displace an amount of oil imports equivalent to most of what America is expected to import from the Middle East in 2025. But America still would import oil from the Middle East, because that's where the greatest oil supplies are. The president's State of the Union reference to Mideast oil made headlines nationwide Wednesday because of his assertion that "America is addicted to oil" and his call to "break this addiction." Bush vowed to fund research into better batteries for hybrid vehicles and more production of the alternative fuel ethanol, setting a lofty goal of replacing "more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025." He pledged to "move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past." Not exactly, though, it turns out. "This was purely an example," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said. He said the broad goal was to displace foreign oil imports, from anywhere, with domestic alternatives. He acknowledged that oil is a freely traded commodity bought and sold globally by private firms. Consequently, it would be very difficult to reduce imports from any single region, especially the most oil-rich region on Earth. Asked why the president used the words "the Middle East" when he didn't really mean them, one administration official said Bush wanted to dramatize the issue in a way that "every American sitting out there listening to the speech understands." The official spoke only on condition of anonymity because he feared that his remarks might get him in trouble.

Can you see my smile from where you are sitting? Can you? I simply cannot believe they could blow this so badly. The president got huge publicity for this, and just one day later - ONE DAY - his people are falling all over themselves to backtrack. The mind boggles.

Couldn't they see this coming? For god's sake he's an oilman. Isn't it obvious that a move like this would get massive coverage? It could have been spun as a Nixon goes to China moment. And yet, 24 hours later, they're running away from it as fast as they possibly can. Amazing.

Which leads straight in to issue #2. Seems there are comments aplenty about the President's newfound fear of human/animal hybrids. That's right, manimals were a topic of the president's constitutionally mandated State of the Union speech last night. First, the speech:

A hopeful society has institutions of science and medicine that do not cut ethical corners and that recognize the matchless value of every life. Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms; creating or implanting embryos for experiments; creating human-animal hybrids; and buying, selling or patenting human embryos. Human life is a gift from our creator, and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale.

Now seriously people... and I really do mean this in all seriousness....

WHERE THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM?!?!?! What could this possibly be referring to? I know the wingnuts on the right are nutty, but they aren't this nutty, are they?

This reference made it into the STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH. Manimals. In the SOTU.

Sadly it appears he was actually serious. It really was a nod to the religious right.

What is wrong with these people? What is wrong with this president? What is wrong with this country? We're at war, and we're going to worry about manimals? Please tell me that this is all a dream and I'm going to wake up soon. Please?

Finally....

My first reaction to the Cindy Sheehan arrest was to think something I've been thinking about her for some time now. Please. Just. Go. Away.

It's not that I don't think what she initially did was important, because I honestly think it was a turning point in media coverage of the war. It's just that, well... she's become a cariciture of herself, and I'm tired of being forced to watch it.

Except that, well... I was wrong. Although I certainly don't think that wearing a T-shirt to the SOTU is appropriate, there's nothing illegal about it, and in this case the shirt wasn't even offensive. Less than 24 hours later the Capitol Police agree and have dropped all charges against her.

But I have to wonder... would this have happened if a Republican Congressman's wife hadn't been idiotically asked to leave too?

...police removed Sheehan and Beverly Young, wife of Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young, R-Fla., from the visitors gallery Tuesday night. Sheehan was taken away in handcuffs before Bush’s arrival at the Capitol and charged with a misdemeanor, while Young left the gallery and therefore was not arrested, Gainer said. “Neither guest should have been confronted about the expressive T-shirts,” Gainer’s statement said. Gainer added that he was asking the U.S. attorney’s office to drop the charge against Sheehan. The statement also said he apologized to the Youngs and “share the department’s plans for avoiding this in the future.” “A similar message has been left with Mrs. Sheehan,” Gainer said. For his part, Bill Young said he was not necessarily satisfied. “My wife was humiliated,” he told reporters. He suggested that “sensitivity training” may be in order for Capitol Police. A foreign-born American citizen who was the guest of Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., also was taken by police from the gallery just above the House floor, Hastings said Wednesday. The congressman met with Gainer and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., about the incident. “I’d like to find out more information,” Hastings said in an interview, identifying the man only as being from Broward County in Florida. “He is a constituent of mine. I invited him proudly.” Different messages expressed Sheehan’s T-shirt alluded to the number of soldiers killed in Iraq: “2245 Dead. How many more?” Capitol Police charged her with a misdemeanor for violating the District of Columbia’s code against unlawful or disruptive conduct on any part of the Capitol grounds, a law enforcement official said. She was released from custody and flew home Wednesday to Los Angeles. Young’s shirt had a message with a different tone: “Support the Troops — Defending Our Freedom.” “They said I was protesting,” Young told the St. Petersburg Times. “I said, ‘Read my shirt, it is not a protest.’ They said, ‘We consider that a protest.’ I said, ‘Then you are an idiot.”’

Three thoughts:

1. Gotta love Mrs. Young's comments. Brilliant!

2. Makes it hard for the right to beat up on her on this one, no?

3. Want a sign of just how far conservatism has fallen? Rep Young is more concerend with people's feelings than with their civil liberties, and his solution is to order up some sensitivity training for the Capitol Police!

And that my friends is all I've got time for. Manimals.... We're talking about manimals. Manimals. God help us.

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