Things that Make You Go Hmmm

I must admit that I didn't pay much attention to the president's State of the Union address on Tuesday night. I had been watching the silly ABC sitcoms so I left the TV on. I watched for about fifteen or twenty minutes -- until my allergies to BS kicked in, then cut the sound and surfed the web. I tuned in later to catch the so-so Dem response and some of the analysis. I turned the TV over when the ABC anchors began falling all over themselves to praise the president for reaching out to Dems in a spirit of bipartanship. (Katrina vanden Heuvel's Dictionary of Republicanisms explains what bipartisanship really means: "When conservative Republicans work with moderate Republicans to pass legislation that Democrats hate.")

There's really no reason to watch the SOTU. I wish they'd go back to the good old days when the prez would just send a letter to the Congress. Do we really need all the pomp and circumstance? It's not like Bush is going to come right out and tell you what the real agenda is. He's going to tell you what he thinks you want to hear. Fabrications, exaggerations and prevarications abound. Think Progress was quick on the draw with some of them. The part of the speech that had everyone abuzz was the bit about our oil addiction and cutting Middle East oil imports by 75% by 2025. Early the next morning, administration officials were already spreading the word that the president "didn't really mean it literally." In a previous post, Mari pointed to the NYT article, "Bush's Goals on Energy Quickly Find Obstacles." Buried way down in the story, almost at the very end, is this little tidbit that illustrates how serious BushCo is about our little addiction...

The Energy Department will begin laying off researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the next week or two because of cuts to its budget.

A veteran researcher said the staff had been told that the cuts would be concentrated among researchers in wind and biomass, which includes ethanol. Those are two of the technologies that Mr. Bush cited on Tuesday night as holding the promise to replace part of the nation's oil imports.

Meanwhile, a WaPo article points out that "after years of cuts, Bush's proposals would barely get renewable-energy funding back to where it was at the end of his predecessor's administration." Sounds like a lot of those obstacles might be self-made. Hmmm.

The Repub Congress has passed a budget that awaits the prez's signature. If you're poor, elderly, a student, or someone who depends on child support payments, you might be in trouble. Hmmm.

On a lighter note, ethically-challenged John Boehner has been elected to the post of House majority leader. He was elected on the second ballot after the first ballot was thrown out. It seems that there were more votes cast than House Repubs actually in attendance.

Hmmm.