My Fellow Americans...DRINK!

So, I watched the President's State of the Union Address tonight. (Don't ask me why I just capitalized most of that last sentence. I guess I'm showing reverence.) Anyway, I was watching it and thought of a good drinking game. Every time the President gets an applause break, take a shot. If it's a standing ovation by half of the house (partisan politics in action) take two. If it's an entire house ovation, take three. If he stumbles over a word, finish your beer.

That seems like a good game in theory. But after I took score of all the applause and the stumbles, it shapes up to be a one-way ticket to the emergency room. After all of the totals were tallied up, I came up with 61 applause breaks, 41 standing ovations, and 9 word stumbles. Now I like a good drinking game like the rest of you, but if I had to take a slug for every time something like that happened, I'd end up a dead man, or the newest member of the Rolling Stones.

What amazed me though is that the President only stumbled 9 times in the time that he spoke, which was a little over an hour. Like him or hate him, that's pretty impressive. I sometimes have a hard time ordering at Burger King, and that only takes 10 seconds. "I'd like a Whopper, some fries, and a Duh duh duh duh Dr. Pepper please."

What I don't like about the Address is the post-speech analysis on the news networks after the fact. It's condescending for these reporters to try and translate what was just said. The President does speak English (not great English, but it's manageable) and I understand English. So why do I need some stiff in a suit to try and tell me what just happened?

Thankfully though, we live in an age where cable TV is prevalent. So we don't have to suffer like the old days. Most of us remember, years ago, when all we had was a few channels and when the Commander in Chief decided he had something to say you had two choices: 1. Sit tight and listen or 2. Be forced into some quality 'family time'.

I'd always get forced into the family time. That's when we'd dust off an old board game and sit quietly together as a family...for five minutes. Then one of my brothers would start cheating. I'd get upset because he wasn't playing fair. Then my mom would get all pissed and beat our asses for fighting and then get sent to bed bruised and crying.

That's why, when I was a kid, when an adult would ask me if I wanted to be President when I grew up, I'd say "No way!". I couldn't have all of those suffering children on my conscience.

-Y2