When Words Collide, Sentences Form

The State of the Union address

Subtitle: What you're really thinking when you're watching it.


I'm watching the State of the Union address. Mainly I kept watching it because the things the analysts were saying before the actually speech started were so freaking funny, I kept it on. So here's my view of the State of the Union. And before I even write it, I'm pretty sure that this will ensure that I'm never invited to the State of the Union address. Which is fine, as long as I'm invited to the after-party.


* First, I heard Katie Couric start up because I had been watching the great shows on CBS like "How I Met Your Mother" and "Two and a Half Men." She comes on and talks about George Washington's last State of the Union address and now George W. Bush's last State of the Union address. What? Did she just try to make a comparison of the father of our country who will not tell a lie and chopped down a cherry tree to the man who probably wonders why it's not the States of the Union address? I flipped the channel.


*But not before I heard Katie say that Bush said that "there wouldn't be a lick of nostalgia" in the address. Can take the boy out of Texas, but you can't take the Texas out of the boy, I guess.


* Then I get to ABC. The guy on that channel just said, "This is the one speech of the year he really gets up for." I'm not gonna lie, that made me giggle like a 12 year old. Maybe they should have proofed that comment before the analyst read it aloud.


* An analyst on one of the above stations noted that "Clinton and Obama have not shook hands yet."


* Here's my thought, and I think it's brilliant. If I were a candidate, I would skip the State of the Union and campaign - you know where all of your opponnents are...you would get the leg up, out there campaigning and knocking on doors.


* I also think that tonight would have been a great night for a caucus...would probably be the highest attended caucus ever...since there's nothing else on TV.


* So I flipped to NBC. And the speech started, so I didn't have an analyst to make fun of.


* Our president started the speech with the standard "Speaker of the house, vice president, members of congress, fellow citizens of the United States....blah blah blah." As he got that started, I was really hoping to hear (and this may be from seeing soo many parodies of him on late night television)..."Speaker of the house, vice president, members of congress, fellow citizens of the United States....Live from Washington D.C., it's Monday Night Live!!" And maybe stick his tongue out.


* My favorite part of the State of the Union address is when everyone stands up and sits down on cue. Makes me want yell a cheer from our high school football games that went something like "Stand up! Sit down! Fight! Fight! Fight!"


* I absolutely love watching the faces of the Veep and the Speaker of the House who get stuck sitting behind the president so you have to look at them the whole time. They are pretending not to fall asleep, to not react too sharply so their constituents get upset, and to not laugh at him.


* It's even more funny to think of all of the people there in the audience watching, knowing that at any second a camera could pan to them to get their reaction and that they could be caught picking their nose, sleeping, rolling their eyes, dropping a pen on the floor, making an origami crane. I know I would be. Or I might bring a laptop and write a blog while he's speaking. The noise of the click-clack on the keys would be similar to what the popcorn machine popping popcorn during the silence of the national anthem at a basketball game would sound like.


* One of my favorite all-time lines that a politician uses is - "And to make sure that the Constitution really means what it says." Yep, he just used it. I don't get that line. Of course it really means what it says? Would anyone take it seriously if it didn't mean what it said? It's not like the Constitution is your mom, who got pissed about you breaking a vase, and you won't admit it, so she says "Henry, if you don't tell me who broke that vase I'm gonna......." And don't you think that by now, all of these years later, someone would have figured out what the Constitution means? If not by now, I think it's too late.


* No wonder things are going bad in the Middle East...there are armies of compassion marching through there. I'm pretty sure that if we have to be other there, we should march armies of fighters through there...will probably be more effective.


Ok, enough thoughts!

posted by Steph @ 6:17 PM