Empty words: Besides a lengthy dose of fake Texas twang and rhetorical rope tricks to try and justify the failures of his administration, it seems few real Americans are expecting much from the State of the Union address tomorrow night:

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Jan. 4-8 among 1,503 adults, finds only modest public expectations for this year’s State of the Union address. Just 30 percent think Bush’s speech will be more important than speeches in past years, down slightly compared with last year and 2004 (34 percent each); roughly half (47 percent) say Bush’s address will be about as important as the speeches of recent years. In January 2002, a few months after the 9/11 attacks, 54 percent said Bush’s speech that year would be more important. And the following year, as the war with Iraq loomed, nearly as many Americans (52 percent) felt Bush’s address would carry greater importance.

Few of us expect a barn-burner like Bush delivered in 2002, just four months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. That speech was famous for a new term it gave us. Can you find it in this excerpt?

In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic. — G. W. Bush

Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.

Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom.

Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens — leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections — then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.

States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

One down, two to go …