The … sigh … State of the Union

Here at Toxic Culture, we geared up to watch the State of the Union address. And by “geared up,” we mean, figured out that it was happening today and figured out what time it came on TV. The world is atwitter waiting for the speech: Wonkette posted their annual drinking game and our friend Dheeraj is also posting his updates in real time. Rather than “live blogging” it, as the kids do these-a-days, we discussed it live over IM. Here, reproduced for your amusement and obvious boredom, is our conversation. I wish I could report highlights of the speech. Sadly, no. But there was applause! Lots of it! For no apparent reason! And W was there! For the last time ever!

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KATE: ok, so it’s 5:30 here on the left coast, where CNN is reporting that Hilary and McCain are ahead. What’s new there in Alabama?
STEPHEN: it is hurting my ears and mind to hear Wolf Blitzer talk about “how tight it is”
KATE: well, he’s just observed wisely that Florida is bigger than South Carolina. See? He knows stuff! And John King has some kind of telestrator!
STEPHEN: i feel like it’d make much more sense and be much less inane in HD
right?
KATE: oh yes. we could see all the pores and the details of Wolf’s hairplugs
STEPHEN: i just wish one of them had a Bill Cosby “picture pages” pen that made musical sounds when they drew lines all over Florida
KATE: Maybe John King doesn’t know that the czar title is already taken, as regards the telestrator
KATE: Wolf is excited about seeing who’s sitting with the First Lady; perhaps he’s auditioning for TMZ
STEPHEN: i hope it’s Tom Brady
KATE: or Gisele! Wow, look at all these white guys shaking hands!
STEPHEN: maybe they staged heath ledger’s death so they can pull back a curtain and reveal that HE is the super special guest in the luxury box.
STEPHEN: Oh- thank god Romney is finally standing up to those damn “entitlements” that are killing the value of the American dollar
KATE: His hair is restoring my confidence in the dollar. So presidential!
STEPHEN: He supports letting people stay in their homes!
STEPHEN: He also sounds strongly anti-recession.
STEPHEN: This filing-in process is such a moronic tradition
KATE: I love it. With any luck, they’re spreading the flu like no tomorrow with all this touching.
KATE: It’s like an ugly, sexless orgy
STEPHEN: i think i saw some hantavirus coming off of Robert Byrd.
KATE: Who’s doing the democratic response?
STEPHEN: jimmy carter
KATE: (reaches for peanuts and Billy Beer)
STEPHEN: i think they may have just hired a homeless dude to stand there and say the word “change” 500 times into the camera.
KATE: Nice to see Roger Clinton getting work.
KATE: Oh, this is great. I didn’t know seating was first come first served. They should remove some seats covertly and see who’s left standing. When the music stops, anyone left standing has to go to Iraq
STEPHEN: “somewhere in this chamber is an IUD. try to guess where! i think you’ll be pleasantly surprised!”
KATE: I’m sure you meant IED
STEPHEN: oh yes.
STEPHEN: I think Wolf just called those three CNN doofuses sitting there with laptops, “the best political team on all of television”
KATE: You see, they have LAPTOPS!
STEPHEN: Some nice sideburns on one of those dudes up by the Bush daughters. Have to keep an eye out for him later.
STEPHEN: The reminder of the possibility that all of these people could be killed all at once is a groovy annual SOTU tradition. Thank god the secretary of the interior is gonna keep america going if something bad happens.
STEPHEN: It’s nice to be reminded that bush used to own the texas rangers just before the last SOTU of his career. Maybe sammy sosa is a special guest
KATE: Ooh! scandal! Obama didn’t shake Clinton’s hand! Also Bush is in something called the “holding room!” I bet it’s like a drunk tank with nicer carpeting. Ok, it’s on! (applauds)
STEPHEN: I wish the ones cheering would say “huzzah!” When did that ever quit?
KATE: I’m not sure. Probably around the same time University of Alabama football players stopped being called “Skip” and “Ears”
STEPHEN: (fondly reminisces)
KATE: Oh my god. The smirking. I can’t take it, Stephen
STEPHEN: You better cowboy up. This could go on for a while
KATE: (drinks wine)
STEPHEN: (waves foam finger)
KATE: (imagines which finger is waving)
KATE: Now wait a minute. He said that the core philosophy of the country is individualism, but that success depends on collective wisdom. Maybe he doesn’t know what “collective” means.
STEPHEN: It all just goes into “freedom pie.”
STEPHEN: mmm …. stimulus.
KATE: If he wants to reduce the tax burden, why doesn’t he cut military spending?
STEPHEN: Quiet, you. The terrorists will hear.
KATE: Yes, yes, “freedom isn’t free.” It’s the worst kind of big government – the kind with tanks and secret eavesdropping (if they pay the bills).
STEPHEN: 151 wasteful and/or bloated programs!
KATE: Good thing all the Iraq spending’s off the books, otherwise this balanced budget thing might seem … fake.
STEPHEN: We’d be paying for the war just fine if it wasn’t for those damn earmarks.
KATE: If the market works so well, why is he messing with the housing market? Why won’t “collective wisdom” solve that problem?
KATE: Oh, now we’re on education.
STEPHEN: NO one can deny NCLB’s results
KATE: sigh
STEPHEN: Hear that? NO ONE
KATE: Look! I have this rock, and it keeps tigers away!
KATE: Oh, vouchers. Is he seriously proposing divesting funds from public schools?
STEPHEN: Well, he did say that they are failing.
KATE: Right. Let’s not fix them. Let’s leave the rest of the children there behind. I hate the laundry list of this thing. I just want him to talk about Mars.
STEPHEN: I NEED him to talk about it. And steroids.
KATE: And be accountable for some of the other stuff he talked about in previous SOTUs. But, let’s be frank- nothing sells like protectionism.
STEPHEN: Haha. “purveyors of false populism”
KATE: Take THAT, Chavez!
STEPHEN: Take THAT hugo! Clearly the problem in colombia is that they haven’t been NAFTA-ized
KATE: Right. Otherwise everything would be fine there
STEPHEN: By Colombia FTA, I mean to say “Plan Colombia” plus market access for our corporations
KATE: Yes- do they spell maquiladora the same way down there?
STEPHEN: Si.
KATE: See, we’re going to solve global warming with carbon capture technology. And we’re not signing on to anything unless everyone else does too.
STEPHEN: This speech is so damn limp.
KATE: It’s just that there’s nothing there: platitudes, tinkering.
STEPHEN: What was that? 2 sentences on warming?
KATE: Maybe 4. And it’s “climate CHANGE,” Stephen – not warming.
KATE: You don’t know. It could be COOLING.
KATE: (shivers)
STEPHEN: Oh right
KATE: Ah- here’s the “see! I told you so!” on stem cells.
STEPHEN: Big ouch for the human clone lobby there
KATE: I’m so disturbed to hear that the “armies of compassion” are “marching on the Gulf Coast.”
KATE: So he’s having a summit? In New Orleans? And this is his “evidence” for the rebuilding working?
STEPHEN: a blue ribbon panel? that’s the best kind!
KATE: Sickening. It’s just all tag lines.
STEPHEN: Something something highest ideals
KATE: that’s what makes it so boring – we’ve heard it all before
STEPHEN: Something something danger overseas
KATE: Ooh! maybe someone’s seeking nuclear fuel in Africa! Victory for the forces of democratic freedom!
KATE: By “justice” I think he means “extrajudicial killing”
STEPHEN: They’ll reject tarrah?
KATE: ha. Poor tarrah
STEPHEN: what if i’m pro freedom but anti hope?
KATE: I could, if I wanted to, make a very dirty joke here about “spreading the hope of freedom.” But I’m not Wonkette.
STEPHEN: Remember that one SOTU when he asked school kids to all send $1 to afghanistan? How much ever got sent?
KATE: I wonder if he’s going to namecheck any special guests in the audience. I always love that. “Look! Here’s someone who endured this thing!”
STEPHEN: Oh for sure he will
KATE: Okay, we’re on Iraq now. “They saw our forces moving into neighborhoods.” Yes, arresting all the men, building walls, paying off our former enemies not to kill us … for now. Yay! it worked!
STEPHEN: They owe us so bigtime for our surge
KATE: it’s cool – we get bases and oil
STEPHEN: we have surged the shit out of them
KATE: Settle down, Beavis
STEPHEN: Is he talking about iran yet?
KATE: Not yet
STPEHEN: I am ready to kick iran’s ASS. Not me, but i mean, the troops he was just directly addressing.
KATE: Oh right. Better to send others to implement the things you like. That’s why the Bush twins aren’t deployed, I reckon.
STEPHEN: I wish we’d keep surging
KATE: Wow, you’re really on about this surge, aren’t you?
STEPHEN: It’s hilarious that he is approvingly talking about de-ba’athification when they are, in fact, re-ba’athifying
KATE: I think it’s opposite day up there
STEPHEN: So there are our choices: a free iraq or a failed iraq
KATE: Love it or leave it baby
6:50 PM
STEPHEN: I want more options.
STEPHEN: I wish my generation would rise to the moment and leave a hopeful region over in that part of the world that my generation has never been to.
STEPHEN: ooo … iran time! Yay!
KATE: omg, he just dissed the NIE
STEPHEN: those suckas don’t know shit about iran’s “nook-yuh-lar” ambitions
STEPHEN: anyway, Bush saw 300. He’s knows what’s up
STEPHEN: hear that LA lady? he saved your ass.
KATE: (applauds) (buys 3 ounce containers for liquids and gels)
STEPHEN: did he mention Pakistan what with the suspending of the government and whatnot?
KATE: um, no
STEPHEN: oh. he’s onto the PATRIOT act now. We’ve only got until friday.
KATE: oh no! (buys duct tape and sheeting for windows and doors)
STEPHEN: i was thinking that there’d be a darfur person up in the balcony
KATE: maybe so
KATE: what’s he going to do about it?
KATE: Send Karen Hughes!
STEPHEN: haha
STEPHEN: send more bibles!
KATE: also teach them about abstinence!
KATE: never mind that we haven’t met our pledges for the Millennium Development Goals
KATE: why not END THE FARM SUBSIDIES rather than buy crops from the developing world? I thought the market would solve all these problems.
STEPHEN: I don’t feel like north korea has been sufficiently threatened
STEPHEN: all this compassion talk makes us look weak to the world
KATE: you’ve always been anti-compassion
STEPHEN: how else will we deter global rivals?
KATE: “our core philosophy is individual something something”
KATE: um, looks like his plan is to reform the VA
STEPHEN: no mention of the, um, unpleasantness at walter reed
KATE: oh no
that’s in the PAST
STEPHEN: guess that was, like, clinton’s fault or something
KATE: at LEAST
KATE: today I found a butterfinger bar in the freezer that was about a million times more inspiring than this
STEPHEN: holy crap look at that woman in white with the INSANE blue eyes. she looks like a monster
did you see her?
KATE: yes
KATE: who was that?
STEPHEN: wasn’t she one of those kids in that horror movie about the kids who can move things with their minds?
KATE: Yes. Maybe she’s animating him right now, telling him: “That’s right…. tell them to trust the people…. now pause for applause”
KATE: Oh, thank god that’s over
STEPHEN: this may have been the worst one
KATE: it was so terrible. So very boring.
STEPHEN:i wish i had watched the harlem globetrotters game
KATE: I know- we could have live blogged that instead
STEPHEN: clinton and obama ….. “a very interesting dynamic. sigh.
KATE: the postgame show is so bad
STEPHEN: i do want to see the dem repsonse
KATE: oh yes
7:05 PM
STEPHEN: can you imagine actually wanting his fucking autograph?.
KATE: Oh yes. I’d have him sign my butt
STEPHEN: He’d do it.
KATE: That would be so cool.I would tell people I was spreading the hope of freedom.
STEPHEN: Wolf Blitzer really needs to be put out to pasture.
KATE: Oh yes. Like I said, he’s a mimbo. Okay, gearing up for the response. What would you say?
STEPHEN: i’d begin by pouring an enormous vat of blood over myself
KATE: And then what?
STEPHEN: play some music. maybe Ministry. maybe Front 242.
KATE:I was thinking Fugazi, but yes.
STEPHEN: i’d take a little plastic baby doll and light it on fire
KATE: Here she is! There’s a fireplace!
STEPHEN: Gov. sebelius is kinda hot
KATE: She sure is. She’s boring as hell, though
STEPHEN: I like that she’s blasting the media though
KATE: You can see the dull glow of the teleprompter in her eyes
STEPHEN: i think this shows that the Dems are in bed with the Thorazine lobby
KATE: Clearly. It is putting me to sleep.
STEPHEN: Americans are such losers if we really do need to be told how great we are all the time. It’s so pathetic.
KATE: Ok, now SHE’s name checking someone in the audience Gutsy!
STEPHEN: What’s wrong with kansas?
KATE: Everything. She keeps asking the President if he will join them. It’s kind of Stepford-ish
STEPHEN: She is flushing her political career down a slow moving toilet full of molasses
KATE: She’s also said “heartland” like 10 times
STEPHEN: I wish she’s pound her fist to her chest every time she said it
KATE: Oh yes. That would be great.
KATE: Also if she was drenched in blood with a flaming baby doll in the other hand, and if she changed her inflection at ANY POINT during the speech.
STEPHEN: “my.parents.grew.wheat.and.loved.america.”
KATE: It is positively soporific. Like a horse tranquilizer and a bottle of robutissin.
STEPHEN: she should go out like kanye at the very end: “by the way, george bush hates black people. …….. end transmission”
KATE: Yes!
STEPHEN: I hate this collective masturbation of how good we americans are. It’s so insulting and stupid
KATE: You hate America.
KATE: It’s because we’re free. Free to tell ourselves how great we are.
KATE: If only the President would join us!
KATE: In the morning, I’m getting to work!
STEPHEN: anderson cooper, take me away from that silver-haired sedative with your silver-haired vacancy!