Stuff, Sotu, and Snarkiness

Well, someone woke up on the snarky side of the bed this morning . . .

Caught part of the State of the Union (SOTU in these acronym-friendly times), and the line about getting the Line item Veto perked up my ears. This was a 90's thing, and it was a bad idea then as it is now. And why would an administration need a line-item veto when it hasn't vetoed a bill in its entire time in office? Was this the Mars/Hybrid/Steroids sort of thing to show they were 'thinking outside the box'?

Then it hit me - the Administration expects to lose big this fall, and is already preparing for dealing with a hostile Congress.

As for the rest, it is kind of obvious that the presidential speechwriters are also moonlighting on the Daily Show - they do the setup lines in the speech, and the punchlines the next day.

Washington Fashion Police arrested Gold-Star Mom Cindy Sheehan for wearing white after Labor Day. Hah! I kid! Actually, it was for "protesting" by wearing a message T-shirt about US deaths in Iraq. What struck me was the murkiness of the media reports- that she was detained (actually, she was arrested, handcuffed, and tossed in the jug for a few hours), and that she had a banner (it was a T-shirt). And this was right in the middle of a heavily-covered media event.

And in the sense of balance, the Media located the wife of a Florida Congressman who was also ejected for wearing a message T-Shirt, this one supporting the troops. She was told she was being treated the same as Sheehan. Well, except for the dragging and the handcuffing and the arresting part (and she got to call the official involved an idiot).

And Dick Cheney was made to change His shirt. It read "I'm with Stupid." (Hah! Take THAT, Daily Show!)

I may have missed this in the speech, but who has more homes without electric power, Baghdad or New Orleans?

And moving on to more important matters, I have to state I think the recent Oscar nominations show the lowness and moral turpitude of the Academy. How can you NOT nominate Jack Black for his star turn in King Kong?

Over on the XL beat - the big argument on EPSN was "chin wars" - who has a more impressive chin? Cohwers jutting prominence or Holgrem's multiple redundencies? God, and its only Wednesday.

And finally, there were 14 inches of rain in January up here in the Real-Time offices of Grubb Street. So maybe that's why the snarkiness.

OK, I'm done.

More later,