U.S. President George W. Bush came to a joint session of the U.S. Congress Tuesday night to give his 2007 State of the Union speech.  It has some traditional aspects and formalities, which were described by the C-Span host.  The protocol isn't as weird as the Sovereign speech in the United Kingdom that I watched earlier this year, but it was also much less entertaining.  The video and transcript are available at the White House.

According to the Nielson TV ratings available via FutonCritic, "FOX's "Idol" remains untouchable as "State of the Union" coverage disrupts most networks' lineups."  In the key 18-49 year-old TV demographic, three times as many people watched "Idol" as watched the President's State of the Union speech.

Sometimes, I think people just don't care anymore.  Either that, or it's just that Bush has lied so many times in the past that it's pointless to continue paying attention to anything that he has to say.  Given that Bush's popularity with average people is about equal to that of venereal disease, I'm not going to bother disecting his entire speech.

I would like to point out an ongoing lie about his administration foiling a terrorist plot: "We stopped an al Qaeda plot to fly a hijacked airplane into the tallest building on the West Coast."

He's starting to believe his own propaganda.  He trotted the Library Tower plot out last year to defend his wiretap program.  That "plot" turned out to be bogus, likely derived from a tortured confession.  Next, he'll be taking credit for saving the Sears Tower in Chicago from the Miami Seven al Qaeda cell.

I listened to the speech Tuesday night, expecting him to lay out the case to bomb Iran.  Everytime he speaks these days, he's making the case to attack Iran.  This speech was no exception.  People say that Bush/Cheney have no plan B.  I think they're wrong.  I think Plan B is to allow Iraq to freefall into anarchy and then blame Iran for it.

Most people wanted to hear what Bush was going to say about escalating the war in Iraq.  I'm not going to analyze that.  The U.S. Congress is acting (finally) to try to limit the Bush/Cheney madness.  We should see something formal in the upcoming weeks.

Virginia Senator Jim Webb gave the State of the Union response for the Democratic party.  A highly decorated Vietnam Veteran, Webb's son is a Marine currently serving in Iraq.  You can read that here or watch it here.  Stephen Zunes, from Foreign Policy in Focus, ripped apart the Iraq section of Bush's speech, line by line, here.

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