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President Barry gave a speech on the budget yesterday. He started yammering on at 1:05pm EST. Isn't that a weird time to give a speech that people might want to hear? Maybe not if you don't really have anything to say and you don't want a lot of people to hear you say nothing firsthand. Can I take this moment to mention that I'm tired of everything being done on East Coast time? One in the afternoon there was ten in the morning for me. I'm in no mood to listen to any President at ten in the morning. I'm barely awake. And I'm not the only one.

Below we have video of Vice President Joe Biden at President Barry's speech. (If for some reason you can't view the video here, you can check it out over at Real Clear Politics.) Poor ol' Joe can barely keep his eyes open for at least a good thirty seconds there. Look, I know it's boring. It's boring as hell. I get that. But come on, man! You're the Vice President of the freaking United States! Can't you at least pretend to pay attention? He didn't talk for very long. He couldn't have held it together until he was done? Did he have a big lunch or something? It's not like that would excuse it or anything, but I'm just saying. If he tends to fall asleep after a large meal, perhaps only stick to a salad on speech day. I'm trying to be sensible and offer ideas here. For once.

Country....

I apologize for this being late (Mark), but I had nothing. Nothing. Completely blank. Blanker than usual. I think it might have been the State of the Union address that numbed me out. That was one thing about George W. Bush that you could always count on. Whenever he spoke, there was no guarantee that it would make any sense. That alone was reason to watch/listen. It's going to be hard to top "human-animal hybrids". So I think that it must be the mundane-ness that numbed me out. And here's why:

I did a little research (ie, I looked at something else besides porn online) on the whole State of the Union address. I went as far back as Reagan and in every single President's State of the Union address, a phrase similar to "Our union is strong" was uttered. Every time. And that's when I realized, what else do I expect them to say? Can I really picture President Barry standing up there all stoic and saying, "Country...We. Are. Effed." No, I can't. I could kind of picture Bill Clinton doing something like that, but we kind of did all right under him (which is probably how he likes it!).

But that's five Presidents in a row who claimed that and it probably goes back as long as we have recorded speech. The point here is maybe we're strong, maybe we're not. (Personally, I think we're a little soft. But again, who's going to tell you that?) But not claiming that we're strong would be like all of the commentators not claiming that a State of the Union address is a "historic event". Is it? Historic? Every year? I find that hard to believe. I find it hard to believe in general. I believe that some of the events that occurred throughout the year are historic. But the recap of them? THAT is historic? Come on. (Not to mention that at least half of the commentators say "an historic event". It's not 'an'. It's 'a'. You don't say "an hotel", do you? No. Stop saying "an historic". Morons.)

And who is to blame for making it into a speech? It's so long. Wait a minute. I take that back. The speech wouldn't be so dang long if everyone would hold their applause and keep their butt in their seat. It's like watching a room full of Jack-in-the-boxes. (No, not the fast food chain with the oh-so delicious Breakfast Jack. The childhood toy of yore is what I was referring to.) Every single sentence that comes out of the President's mouth gets a round of applause from the peanut gallery and they all jump to their collective feet. Why? All he said was "Good evening"! He gets a standing O for that? Sit down and let him finish so that we can be done with this already! I'll bet you that if you didn't have to wait for all of the clapping and all of the standing and all of the sitting that he'd be done with that thing in twenty minutes. But no. No, now we're all locked in for at least an hour. I pass the time by trying to figure out how John Boehner got to be so orange. (And in case you're still wondering, it was Woodrow Wilson who is responsible for bringing the State of the Union back in the orated form. Jackass.)

See, it doesn't have to be a speech. It's apparently mandated in the Constitution by Article 2, Section 3 that the President, "...shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union". From time to time. I find that hilarious. What say every now and then you let us know how things are goin'? I mean, I know it doesn't sound as good the way that I said it (and without the fancy script it really loses a lot), but that's essentially what's going on there. It says nothing about a speech. Future presidents, current president, please make a note.

So how great would it be if the President just dropped off a letter to Congress? Oh, it would be fabulous! (Besides, the text of the speech always leaks out ahead of time, so it's not like we don't know what he's going to say.) You know what would be even greater? If it said something like "We're doing good over here. Hope y'all are doing good, too. TTYL. Barry." Wouldn't that be fabulous? I think it would be great. If nothing else, it might possibly get all of the media folks to stop saying that it's "an historic event".

State of the Union Bingo is HERE!

Today is the State of the Union address by President Barry. Can you believe that the last State of the Union address, the one where Joe Wilson shouted out, "You lie!", was a year ago? Holy cats, it seems like ten years ago when that happened. Actually, it seems like more like a hundred. Wow. Just thinking of that whole ordeal makes my ass tired. Thus, in order to avoid an overly exhausted anterior region, let's not think about last year. Instead, let's think about this year's State of the Union. And what better way to think of it and to get geared up for it than with a little State of the Union bingo?! Here's your card. Mark off a space every time President Barry utters one of the following words or phrases. Regular Bingo rules apply. If you get a bingo, pat yourself on the back or do a shot or whatever it is that you would do in that sort of celebratory situation. Playing this is probably the only way that I'm going to be able to stay awake through the whole thing.

Slightly Psychotic Stump Speech

I realize that when you want to be nominated to run for a public office that you sort of have to make yourself stand out in certain ways. Try and make it a way that's not crazy. Take this Phil Davison fellow for a moment, won't you? He wanted to be nominated to be the Republican candidate for the Stark County Treasurer in Stark County (surprise), Ohio. Below is his stump speech that he gave. And, um...well...it's hard to know where to go from here. Actually, I might not have to go anywhere. He might just take it home for us by himself. Let's see.

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Hmm. Yeah. Are we sure that this was Stark County and not Stark Raving Mad County? Seriously, there's not much more I can do with that. He pretty much did my work for me. I do believe that he confused "passion" with "psychosis" and "needing medication". I like it when he says "We're tired of business as usual!" He's far from usual, I'll give him that! Who was his adviser? Mel Gibson? Good Lord, sir. How does he keep that up for a full six minutes without having a stroke? He's pacing around like a lion in a cage with this crazed look in his glazed over eyes. Wow, wow, wow.

You know who he sounds just like? Chris Farley in the SNL skit where he is a motivational speaker and loudly states, "First off...I am 34-years old....I am divorced....And I live in a van...down by the river!" If you're unfamiliar, good luck at finding the video anywhere online other than at NBC because they are rather protective about having any of their stuff out there where they don't have control over it. If you're just interested in just the audio of the late, great Chris Farley doing his motivational speaker gig (you know, for comparative purposes), it can be found here. So, tell your friends, tell your neighbors and tell Randy Gonzalez.

By the way, I'm sure you will be shocked, simply shocked, to learn that he did not receive the nomination that he was looking for. Go figure.