State of the Union: Is It Over Yet?

Well, I lasted ten minutes.

This was George W. Bush's last State of the Union Address, but more importantly, it was my last time having to listen to George W. Bush give a State of the Union Address.

What was, for the first six years merely irritating, has become in this last, genuinely nauseating.

Forget the details of this man's train wreck of a presidency, forget the substance. Let's talk image alone: what president in history has smirked his way through a State of Union? What is that? What strange tick explains it? What is missing in this man to allow for that?

I lasted long enough to hear Bush lay down the law to Congress on earmarks. It's about transparency, dammit, he lectured. Really? And what about this President's unprecedented use of his so-called "signing statements," wherein he has signed laws but simultaneously noted that he may not actually carry them out as the peoples' representatives have legally instructed him to do?

Transparency? This administration does not know the meaning of the word. Only last week an exhaustive study revealed that, in all, the President and his aides used fully 935 lies to mislead the American people about the War in Iraq.

Transparency?
The only thing transparent about George W. Bush and his entire misbegotten legacy is that its origins were tainted, its entire tenure has been tainted, and everything it has touched has become tainted.

Including us.

And it will take more than a new president to wash it away.