State of the Union

Good morning, fellow chasers of answers.

I have to confess, I did not see the State of the Union Address.  This is the 3rd GWB SOTU I've skipped -- but this time I had a good excuse -- Lennon's mom was working and I had to pick her up.

I did read (or skim) the prepared comments which were circulated prior to the address.

But I don't really have much to say about it.  Just three things:

1.  POTUS seemed upset about congress defeating his so called entitlement reform programs.  They were horrible programs Mr. Bush was advocating, and even if they weren't, congress is right not to trust the Bush administration to tinker with Social Security and Medicare.  I certainly don't trust them to work on these issues --- policies which are critical to the most vulnerable members of our society are really the Bush administration's weakest point -- which is saying something, as there are plenty of weak points to choose between.

2. POTUS is absolutely right to insist that congress act quickly on the stimulus package, to warn the Senate that an expended package is the same as no package at all, and to be cautionary about the state of the economy, generally.  From his prepared remarks, this was the most truthful of this president's SOTU addresses, we think.

3. We think that the low rating of the SOTU (as far as the Nielson people are concerned) confirms our position that Mr. Bush has been a lame duck since the midterms.