Oh yeah, the State of the Union

Well, OK technically the speech that guys in their first month of office to Congress isn't called the State of the Union Address, but really all the same elements are there. President, Congress, speech, legislative proposals, TV audience. And what a state the union is in, the state of freefall. While some are hoping for a more...uh...hopeful tone, he is going to be talking about proposals that have to get past Republicans. So expect this speech to take on the tone of a hostage negotiation, where the chief of police has to try to get the deranged leader and his elite team of mercs to release the hostages before they blow up the building and kill everyone. The White House has addressed some preliminary points Barry will touch upon.

The economy, in its worst tailspin in decades, will dominate. Obama will touch on foreign policy, but that will largely be left for other upcoming speeches. This will not be a rollout of one policy initiative after another.

Obama will make clear that the trillion-dollar-plus deficit is one he "inherited." In other words, he wants to remind people that President George W. Bush and the previous Congress left him a big hole, forcing him to pursue the costly stimulus package.

The president will push for movement on ensuring health coverage for all Americans. He will seek to expand educational opportunities, and diversify the country's energy sources, and contain sacred entitlements like Social Security, and halve the soaring budget deficit in four years.

Ah yes, 15 minutes of "Things will get better" followed by another 15 of "That motherfucker Bush caused all of this. J'ACCUSE!!!!!!!" Then he moves on to things that will invariably not get passed, like healthcare, because ~socialism~ and someone like Ben Nelson or Olympia Snowe thinks it sounds too expensive. Round it out with a plea to halve the deficit by either cutting spending or overseeing the dissolution of the United States and this shouldn't go more than an hour. All in all it ought to be good practice for a year from now as he gives his first official SotU in front of a trashcan fire in the burnt out remnants of Washnington.