Various & sundry, SOTU edition

Andrew B. Wilson notes that tonight's State of the Union will be blessedly Pelosi-free:

We won't see her constantly popping up and down in the upper right-hand corner of our television screens -- a deranged jack-in-the-box, screaming her approval every time the president pauses for an applause line.

Even so, I probably won't be tuning in. Now that we have our Roku box upstairs I can watch My Name is Earl reruns whenever I want to. I know Earl and Randy won't try to con me or insult my intelligence the way Obama and his "I heart business" shtick will do.

Back to Mr. Wilson:

Nevertheless, I, for one, am groaning at the thought of tonight's state-of-the-union address. Do we really want another exercise in presidential rhetoric, self-aggrandizement, and detachment from what remains of a functioning real world?

When he ascends the podium this evening, Barack Obama, in his Pan-like manipulation of different guises, will be at pains to show off his new business-friendly persona and bona fides. For a president who spent a large part of his first two years in office denouncing "fat cat bankers," greedy businessmen, and the profit motive, this will be the beginning of a calculated flirtation with free-market capitalism. To borrow John Ehrlichman's phrase from the Nixon and Watergate era, he is seeking "a modified, limited hangout" with free-market capitalism in the run-up to the 2012 general election.

Mr. Obama would like us to believe than he is the impartial arbiter of all science and knowledge -- regardless of the thinness of his résumé before and, even more, since his elevation to the presidency.

Earl Hickey's change of heart is a lot more convincing than Obama's. Read the rest and do not be fooled by "Obama's recently adopted brand of faux capitalism." It's a lie, and a destructive one.

For another preview see Wolf Howling for Obama's Five Pillars of Deceit:

Tuesday night, Obama will give his State of the Union (SOTU) speech. So what can we expect? According to the NYT, Obama will present as a newly minted centrist, focusing on "five pillars for ensuring America’s competitiveness and economic growth: innovation, education, infrastructure, deficit reduction and reforming government."

RTR. GW breaks it down for you. In short: lies, lies, all lies. (H/t: Doug Ross)


The Paul Ryan buzz hits fever pitch. Take a breath, people.


I don't watch American Idol but this is nice.


Saving the best for last. Mark Steyn writes of show trials in Denmark:

That’s why these are heresy trials, and only the first of many. The prosecutors think Hedegaard, Langballe, Wilders, Mrs Sabbaditsch-Wolff et al are apostates from the new state religion of multiculturalism. Thuggish Muslim lobby groups, on the other hand, consider them heretics against Islam. In practice, it makes little difference, and multiculturalism is merely an interim phase, a once useful cover for an Islamic imperialism so confident it now barely needs one. The good news is that European prosecutors are doing such a grand job with their pilot program of show trials you’ll hardly notice the difference when sharia is formally instituted. 

Read the whole thing.

Out of time. Have a good day.

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Update: Roger Kimball won't be watching, either:

Like Justice Scalia, I am planning to give tonight’s State of the Union Address a pass. I am not quite ready for the 2012 campaign yet, and clearly President Obama is dusting off his clichés and contradictions for a big blow out tonight. “The economy’s in trouble, folks, but we need to spend more on EDUCATION. The United States must be more competitive, but we need to commitment ourselves to green (i.e., economically ruinous) technology.” Etc. My personal stash of Dramamine just isn’t large enough. Besides, I think George Will is right: what the State of the Union is all about is the President, regardless of party, endeavoring to “stroke every erogenous zone in the electorate.” It’s a big country and the spectacle is bound to be unseemly.

No, instead of the State of the Union (which I already know to be bad), I might just hole up with Johnny Mercer. Glenn Reynolds has recently made it a habit to flag various links with the phrase: “the country’s in the very best of hands.” I always snickered at that because, well, just look at Washington or your state capital. Pathetic isn’t it?

I am chagrined to admit that it was only this morning that I learned the origin of that delicious phrase “the country’s in the very best of hands.” It’s from the great song writer Johnny Mercer.

Read the rest, then come back to listen to the song:



Thanks to Mark Steyn I've become a big fan of Mercer. Steyn's awesome Mercer podcasts (here and here) are another great alternative to watching tonight's "unseemly spectacle."


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