The State of the Union is... Blue?

Posted on February 2, 2005

Well, I managed to sit through the entire State of the Union speech and the Democratic Response, and here are my initial impressions. First off, all the women seemed to be wearing blue, which is really weird considering the whole red state/blue state paradigm. I mean, even the Republican women are really embracing the blue. Navy blue (Condi), sky blue (Laura Bush), aqua blue (Nancy Pelosi, with fabulous coordinating South Sea pearls) and many other shades of blue were clearly de rigeur for the evening. Bush didn't get the memo, though, and went with a solid red tie, as did Cheney. Hastert broke out of the pack and had a gold tie.

The policy specifics? Oh right, well, there were some surprises in Bush's speech, such as his outspoken support for the dissidents in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan (ouch!) and his forceful call for a constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage (guess that grumpy letter from Dobson et al worked.) Also surprising was 1) his nonchalant passing reference to the security of our homeland about 30 minutes into the speech; 2) his forceful demands for an end to all those frivlous asbestos lawsuits (emphysema-riddled hypochondriacs, the lot of them!); and 3) the statment that "The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else."

Ooops! Someone's been reading his Inaugural Speech reviews.... Not surprising was the invoking of the buzzwords and phrases: "culture of life," "social security will be bankrupt," and "we can only be safe when the rest of the world is free." Oh, and we can't give a timetable for leaving Iraq because it would embolden the terrorists. So, does that mean we can never leave?