SOTU blues

Maybe it's because I'm in the middle of a book about the opposition in Communist East Germany. But watching Bush deliver the SOTU Tuesday evening, I kept thinking of the label that Billmon uses for Congress when they're knuckling under to Bush: our Chamber of People's Deputies.

It really seemed like that to me this time. The SOTU has turned into a clown show. Dear Leader Bush delivers platitudes, and every few minutes the People's Deputies stand up and dutifully applaud the wisdom and vision of Dear Leader. It's really become silly.

Every now and then, the Opposition People's Deputies show their mild displeasure by not standing and applauding at this or that platitude. Hey, they had "opposition" parties in East Germany, too. It was a farce, of course. And, actually "opposition" was formally illegal. So they were just there to show that the parliament was a multi-party affair.

Then afterwards, I thought I would watch the Party channel (FOX News) for the Correct Line on the speech. Everyone at FOX had a good time talking about how ridiculous the Democrats were. And about how Dear Leader's generous offer of cooperation was being rejected by those nasty Dems, who were so rude and disrespectful as not to stand and applaud at every platitude!


Then some FOX reporter talked about a lunch meeting Tuesday where supposedly Dear Leader addressed the network anchors to tell them what it was their duty to report to his loyal subjects about his wise address. The FOX guy rhapsodized about how "blessed" he was to have been there. And how he wished everyone could have that experience, to experience first hand the wisdom and courage and steely determination of our incomparable Dear Leader.

At this point, I thought I should start practicing singing the "Internationale". But I guess that won't be the required song when Chrisitian Republican Party finally liberates us forever from heathistic secular government. It will probably be that whiny, godawful song by Lee Greenwood that goes, "Ah'm proud to be an American/Where at least I know I'm free". "At least"? I always thought that was pretty whiny. But I guess in God's Republican Kingdom we'll have to change that to "at least I used to free".