Dikembe Mutumbo? Dikembe Mutumbo?

This Tuesday saw President Bush's State of the Union address, his first to be delivered to a Democratic Congress, after having been thoroughly pasted in the midterm elections. It was a historic event, so naturally I missed it. I have however, started going through the transcript, and naturally I have a collection of comments. As usual, the President's remarks will be in italics, while my smarmy retorts follow.

We enter the year 2007 with large endeavors underway, and others that are ours to begin.

READ: Next up, Iran.

We're not the first to come here with a government divided and uncertainty in the air. Like many before us, we can work through our differences, and achieve big things for the American people. Our citizens don't much care which side of the aisle we sit on...

Just so long as it's the opposite side of the aisle as you there, Georgey boy.

We set a goal of cutting the deficit in half by 2009, and met that goal three years ahead of schedule.

And all it took was running up unbelievably massive deficits in 2001-03, thus setting the bar so low a fucking hippopotamus could have jumped over it.

Five years ago, we rose above partisan differences to pass the No Child Left Behind Act, preserving local control, raising standards, and holding those schools accountable for results.

Preserving local control... by imposing uniform national standards. That makes sense.

The No Child Left Behind Act has worked for America's children -- and I ask Congress to reauthorize this good law.

(At which point I will again fail to provide the adequate funding that was promised.)

When it comes to health care, government has an obligation to care for the elderly, the disabled, and poor children.

Ronald Regean is rolling over in his grave. This man calls himself a Republican?

To secure our border, we're doubling the size of the Border Patrol, and funding new infrastructure and technology.

The same technology that failed to protect the Chinese from Genghis Kahn.

Five years have come and gone since we saw the scenes and felt the sorrow that the terrorists can cause.

And not a day has passed that I've failed to mention it.

We've added many critical protections to guard the homeland.

For example, a totally neat color-coding system

Yet one question has surely been settled: that to win the war on terror we must take the fight to the enemy.

Right, that's why we declared war on Saudi Arabia...wait a minute.

The enemy knows that the days of comfortable sanctuary, easy movement, steady financing, and free flowing communications are long over. For the terrorists, life since 9/11 has never been the same.

Umm, with all due respect, Mr. President, what the fuck are you smoking? What sort of paradise do you think the terrorists were living in? "Comfortable sanctuary"? Every time we saw Osama he was in a fucking cave. Caves are like the opposite of comfortable. Caves are UNcomfortable.

The evil that inspired and rejoiced in 9/11 is still at work in the world.

Seriously. Those fucking Jews. (dude, you're going to get us in trouble again -ed.)

They want to overthrow moderate governments, and establish safe havens from which to plan and carry out new attacks on our country.

Wait, wait...they want to find countries in the Middle East whose governments aren't run by Islamic fundamentalists, and then overthrow those governments, leading to anarchistic breeding ground for terrorists? What sort of a psychotic bastard would do that?

Alright, that's about all the smarminess I can muster at the moment. I'd like to take the rest of this post to address why I think Senator Obama might actually make a good candidate, or at the very least why I (and I think many others) like him. This part may or may not be funny.

I think, more than anything, it's what Obama represents to people. I grant that I don't know that much about Obama's politics, because he hasn't really been around long enough to take that many stances. But that's not what I care about at the moment. I am one of many people who think that the problems with our government run deeper than partisan causes. The problems are systematic, caused by a government that's more concerned with being re-elected than with solving problems.

I think that to most of us, Obama represents some fresh blood. A different way of approaching things than the rest of Washington has. Now, I grant you that maybe this is bullshit. Maybe Obama will turn out to be the same type of politician that most of those in Washington become. But if I had to guess why I hope that he isn't, I think it's simply that I have to hope that someone isn't. There's a wonderful quote that "a second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience." I think it's something like that.

And I grant that him being black is a significant roadblock to his campaign. But if anything, that just feeds into the hope. Cause if we actually were to elect a black president, it would mean that things really had changed in the last forty years.

I don't, however, grant that his lack of experience hurts him. If anything, I think that's his best strength. Because it won't give the Republicans anything to hit him with. He won't have a significant enough voting record to actually target.

I don't know that we're capable of electing a black man at the moment, and if I had to guess I'd put my money firmly on no. And if we did elect him, I don't know that he'd be a good president. I don't know that he'd be anything like what I want him to be. But I can tell you why I hold out hope.

I had a prof once who, when I remarked I was thinking about becoming a politician, told me that we don't need any more politicians. What we need are more statesmen. I don't know which of the two Obama is, but I can certainly tell you which one I think Hillary, Edwards, Biden, Dodd and all the rest of the Democrats are.