SOTU

You know, listening to the SOTU became easier this year for two reasons:

1. Fewer smart-ass smirks from Dubya
2. The SOTU Drinking Game

After his third or fourth reference to "the American people," I was too entranced by the spinning Senate floor to care. Gotta love the dramatic atmospheric shift this year. No more wild applause or u-rah cheers, and a lot of painful silence when he clearly expected praise. So, what was my favorite part? The long, drawn out praise of Nancy Pelosi, clearly intended to forstall actually embarking on a lame duck speech, or the standard cream filling (in which we praise various random people for random noble acts) which came at the end this time -- because he had not a damned thing to say and didn't want to wrap up with, "Please don't hurt me." Personally, I think it was the Cheney-Pelosi glare wars. Good stuff, people.

But what was up with the near-groping of our new Speaker of the House? Between her and Angela Merkel, I think we have a problem.