Live Blogging the State of the Union Address!

Hello, everyone!

Because my insta-blogging of the GOP national security debate was so popular (and successful because it knocked Michelle “HPV” Bachmann and Rick “Ol Texas Haircut” Perry out of the race) I’ve decided to visit the magic on the Democratic prez.

I’ll also see if I might invent a drinking game halfway through this.  I’m currently watching the address on CNN alongside Mrs Line of Departure (who believes the sun spots are stealing the Internet, so she might be a Ron Paul voter), two deaf cats, a blind one and Gabriel, the cat who looks like a rump roast with whiskers.

Gabriel is the house Democrat but I think he might’ve voted for Reagan in 1984.

*****

1918:  Barack Obama sends me an email!

(I don’t read it until 2030.)

“Carl –”

(He knows my name!)

“I’m heading to Capitol Hill soon to deliver my third State of the Union address.

“Before I go, I want to say thanks for everything you’re doing.

“Tonight, we set the tone for the year ahead. I’m going to lay out in concrete terms the path we need to take as a country if we want an economy that works for everyone and rewards hard work and responsibility.

“I’m glad to know you’ll be standing with me up there.

“Barack”

2031:  I translate.

Dear Randomly Generated Name from Email Database,

I must fulfill my Constitutional duties tonight.  Unlike that Libya thing.

Before I go, I want to say “thanks” even though you’re probably a damned blogger.  Anyhoo, I have no idea who you are or what you’re doing but you might vote for me in the fall.

Tonight, we set the tone for the election, errrrr, year ahead.  I’m going to lay out in concrete terms the path we need to take as a country. Which is to say, why you need to reelect me and not the rich cyborg Mitt or the angry Teletubby Newt.

We also want an economy that works, but China won’t give us theirs.  We might like an economy that rewards hard work and responsibility, too, but I’d prefer to give a big fat sop to the federal bureaucracy.

I’m assuming that you’ll be standing with me.  As I pee on Newt and Mitt.  Marines, you’re not allowed to do that or I’ll set Hillary on you.

2034:  Wolf Blitzer announces that the man who will lead the nation in the event something very, very, very wrong happens tonight is Tom Vilsack.

He’s the Secretary of Agriculture, folks.  The guy who mails out the corn subsidy checks is a finger away from the nuclear football.

2101:  Ruth Bader Ginsburg is wearing a doily.

2106:  Obama’s flag (U.S., not Kenyan) lapel pin says that he heard the speech earlier today and it’s not all that.

2109:  Leon Panetta “did a good job,” per POTUS.  Did he hire someone to replace the disastrous P&R pick by Obama?

2110:  WTF is Michelle Obama wearing across her chest?  It looks like a disco ball mated with the hood ornament of a Buick.  Make it stop.

2111:  How did fighting in Iraq make us safer or more respected around the world?  But, hey, POTUS, thanks for calling me a “hero.”  Next year at Applebee’s I’ll put that out there.

2112:  Standing applause for the corpse of Osama bin Laden.

2113:  C/JCS Dempsey seemed to grimace when Obama said that the Taliban (which militia?) had their momentum stopped.

2114:  The WWII generation built the strongest economy the globe has ever known.  I don’t think I can build a gingerbread house.

Gabriel:  You can’t.  Meow.

2115:  Great campaign speech!  John Edwards wants it back.

2117:  “We lost 4 million jobs.  And we lost another 4 million before our policies went into effect.”  Uhhhh, those 3 million jobs created don’t add up to 8 million.

2119:  “A blueprint for a new American economy!”  (Lapel Pin:  He means an economy that makes blueprints)

2120:  “Tonight, the American automobile industry is back!”  (Lapel Pin:  He wants to win Michigan)

2121:  “Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Raleigh!” (Lapel Pin:  Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina)

2122:  The economy looks almost as bad as John Kerry’s mug.

2124:  Uhhhh, are we going to get to the state of the union or is Obama just going to pander to the states with a lot of unions?

2125:  Eric Cantor is the definition of constipation.

2127:  “Employers can’t find workers with the right skills.”  Or can pass a drug test.

2128:  Obama’s right about community colleges.  As a nation, we need to invest in helping Americans remain educated, employable and productive.  (Gabriel:  Brought to you by Central Piedmont Community College)

2130:  “Most teachers work tirelessly with meager pay.”  My ass.  Quit sucking up to the NEA before you slam them with merit pay proposals.  They’re going to vote for you anyway.

2133:  Double work study jobs.  CETA!  (Lapel Pin:  I told him that he sometimes sounds like Jimmy Carter)

Gabriel:  Hey, CETA was enacted in 1973!  Lapel Pin:  Yeah, but everyone thinks “Carter.”

2135:  “Obama joins Newt Gingrich in embracing comprehensive immigration reform,” reads the news release the Romney campaign is furiously typing.

2136:  Obama proposes ERA.  Man, I feel like I jumped in the Wayback Machine and landed in 1977.  Maybe it’s Michelle Obama’s disco ball chest flange.

2137:  Open more than 75 percent of offshore oil resources?  O, fickle America, you won’t remember BP and Louisiana.  Bwaahaahaahaa!!!

2139:  Mitch McConnell looks like a demonic Martha Washington.  He’s gumming his hate.  You would’ve thought that he’d be happy because Rand Paul got butt probed by TSA.

2141:  Mrs Line of Departure, who campaigned door to door for Obama in the previous election, just announced to the cats and me that she doesn’t know who she’s voting for this year.  She didn’t like the quip about the environment.

2142:  “I will not walk away from clean energy!”  Uhhh, didn’t you just kind of do that 45 seconds ago?  (Lapel Pin:  He’s walking away from clean energy but NOT the tax subsidies for clean energy)

2143:  The Navy is going to buy clean energy.  Who knew that we could run carrier groups on squid juice?  (Gabriel:  You can’t stop being a Marine?  Carl:  No!  Never!)

2146: “Take the money we’re no longer spending at war.”  Uhhhhh…

2147:  This wishlist is DOA in the House.

2148:  “I’ve ordered every federal agency to eliminate rules that don’t make sense.”  Oh, come on.  Forced laughter, in re crying over spilt milk.  Maybe we should just be glad that Boehner didn’t start crying.

2149:  He mentioned BP!  He mentioned BP!  (Lapel Pin:  He can’t help himself.)

2151:  Banks, we won’t bail you out again!  Unless you order me to.  (Lapel Pin:  He’ll make it rain up in here!)

Gabriel:  Brecht asked us a salient question — what is the robbing of a bank compared to the opening of one?

2153:  Gabriel begins playing with his favorite toy, ball-on-a-string; Barack begins playing with his favorite toy, the payroll tax bill.

2154:  Obama now begins to campaign against Mitt Romney.

2156:  OK, I’m in that 2 percent and I work my ass off and if I lost my jobs I’d be homeless.  But I think Obama is right.  My marginal tax rate is too low.

Gabriel:

 Carl:  Quite.

2200:  Yon bumps me off the banner of my Line of Departure while I’m live-blogging.  Hey, Michael, why not tell us how Operation Enduring Freedom was marching to victory on Sept. 7 and now we have to speed the withdrawal of U.S. troops?  (Lapel Pin:  You have no chance of getting him to answer that, dude.  Gabriel:  Word).

2203:  House Democrats apparently must rise whenever Obama says some bumper-sticker aphorism about America coming out on top, America winning, America blah blah blah.  I would make that into a drinking game but I’d have been tanked in the first 15 minutes.  I might need to get drunk if he lies again about Afghanistan.  Hillary didn’t even buy it.

2205:  Human dignity can’t be denied, Assad regime.  (Assad:  Oh, we’ll deny, buddy.  What are you going to do about it?)

2206:  We will stand against tyranny!  Unless it’s in Yemen, Bahrain or whichever government comes to power in Tripoli.

2207:  Standing ovation for hinting at war with Iran, smattering of applause, talked over by Obama, when he said that a peaceful solution was preferred.

2208:  Pandering for the pro-dictatorship Burmese-American vote!

2009:  “…where opinions of America is higher than it’s been in years.” (Lapel Pin:  Sometimes he thinks that he’s still running against George W. Bush)

2210:  Oooooooooh, cyber-terrorism!  Save us, Obama!

2211:  Standing ovation for the troops.  Blah, blah, blah.   What are you doing about the Warrior Transition Units?  What are you doing about vet homelessness?  What are you doing to reform the bureaucratic culture at VA?  Are tax credits to American businesses enough to prod them to hire vets fresh from the battlefield? 

(Lapel Pin:  Yeah, they stoplossed my ass, too; Gabriel:  I want my vet to be homeless, especially when he takes my temperature.  I’m not Rand Paul and he ain’t TSA!)

2212:  “gay, straight.”  Wow.  I never thought I’d hear that in a State of the Union!

2213:  Obama wants you to know that he sent the SEALs who shot bin Laden.  He really, really, really wants you to know that.  Newt and Mitt, they haven’t sent any SEALs to shoot terrorists.

2214:  State of the Union wraps up.  Everyone needs to be like the SEALs.

2217:  CNN post-speech party begins.  In that tie John King looks like a thermometer.

2220:  David Gergen, human beige stuffed with vanilla, blathers something bland about boring things.

2222:  David Begala lights some incense, takes off his shirt, and tells us how he would make sweet, sweet love to the greatest man who ever lived, Barack Obama.

2226:  Ari Fleischer takes a long, slow pee on the speech.  And then Begala.

2227:  Mitch Daniels actually isn’t the governor of Super Bowl XLVI but rather my home state of Indiana.  Hey, same lapel pin as Barack’s!

2229:  Yeah, he’s right about government as a share of GDP.  “Trickle down government.”  Touche!  “Big and bossy!”  The federal government is like Donald Trump, only Democratic.

2230:  Oh, come on, Mitch.  We’re not like Greece.

2233:  When Mitch talks about what Hoosiers would buy if they had more of their tax money back, he means high school basketball tickets, apple butter and whatever the Amish don’t want.  Mostly, their apple butter.

2037:   Really, Mitch, our allies are telling us that we might pick the wrong light bulb?  That’s nonsensical.

2039:  City on a hill, blah, blah, blah, goodnight.  Mitch, I can think of thousands of Republicans who would want you to run.  But Iowa and New Hampshire proved that the GOP doesn’t want smart this year.  They want rich, hypocritical or rich and hypocritical.

(Gabriel:  Don’t ask Hoosiers about daylight savings time.  They take hostages)

2043:  Ari still in mid-stream on the speech.  Man.  He must’ve been guzzling Big Gulps for an hour.

2045:  Begala starts to giggle.  Wife kvetches about the “sun spot affair of 2012.”  Gabriel, Lapel Pin and I shall be sleeping on the couch .

2047:  Scariest words ever uttered on cable TV:  “CNN, we’re live until midnight!”  What could you possible have to talk about for another hour?  Anderson Cooper’s tie is the color of Aquaman’s leotards.  (Gabriel:  Teal Team 6?)

2250:  U.S. Rep. G.T. Thompson, R-Pa., sends email — “The President tonight pledged his commitment to energy security, yet his Administration’s actions run contrary to the rhetoric.  While his acknowledgment that we need increased domestic production of oil and natural gas, on and off shore, was quite promising, to date the Administration has worked to counter attempts at making America’s energy future more secure. The President’s denial of the Keystone XL pipeline, which has the potential to create thousands of jobs and add to our energy security, is the latest example of this White House’s failure to understand our nation’s energy needs and potential.”

That’s a big issue in parts of rural Pennsylvania.  I take no stand one way or the other on it.

2255:  Ad placed on behalf of Obama’s reelection campaign.  Uhhhh, wasn’t the State of the Union already an informercial for Obama 12?

Tags: Barack Obama, Live blogging, state of the union address