There are new rules for the State of the Union drinking game for 2006. This year, instead of hoisting a cool one or sipping a mickey every time Dear Leader mutters one of his catch phrases like “terrist survayance program” or “axis of evil,” follow these simple rules:
- At 6PM PST, turn off your television and grab your coat
- Go to the nearest bar
- Drink until kneewalking
- (In the off chance the television in the bar is tuned to the president’s speech, go to another bar)
- Return home safely and go to bed
- Others will count his lies while you sleep
See — all the fun of an old-fashioned “keyword” SOTU drinking game without having to listen to Dear Leader’s torturous elocution.
And if we have learned one thing about Mr. Bush it’s that there is no particular benefit to hearing his lies freshly minted.
Or, if you want to stay home and drink, here are some suggested movie titles that would provide a meaningful diversion from the SOTU: “Bob Roberts,” “Network,” “Wag the Dog,” “All the President’s Men,” “Seven Days In May,” “Failsafe,” “Dr. Strangelove,” “The Candidate.”
This is one of the few times I’m really glad I work at night.
Did you see that Borowitz said today the speech will be simulcast in English?
With the president’s approval ratings sagging, the decision to simulcast the speech in English was widely seen as an attempt by the president to make an appeal to a broader audience.
“The majority of people in this country are English speaking, and quite frankly, we can’t afford to ignore them any longer,” one senior aide said. “Hopefully, by doing the English simulcast, we’ll be reaching out to a lot of those folks.”
Once the decision was made earlier in the month to launch the historic first English simulcast of a speech by President Bush, then began the hard work of translating the text of the address from Mr. Bush’s language into English.
Tonight, before Bush’s SOTU speech, I vowed to tried to remain as non-judgmental as I could be. However, even in my best impartial frame of vision, the opening of tonight’s ceremony reminded me distinctly of a scene from the Coloseum in Imperial Rome - the smug “emperor”, his shorn and tightly disciplined troops standing and fawning in fealty to their brave and conquering leader. It was eerily familiar to a scene from Spartacus.
The speech was no surprise of course, other than the bold and “in your face” framing of Islam as a religion to be conquered. 2,000 years of human civilization has not brought us one iota further than this?
I went to the SOTU speech site this morning to do a textual analysis to see if there was anything interesting — there wasn’t. But one thing I found veerry interesting: the speech is available in English and two additional languages — Spanish and Arabic. Hmmmm…