SOME PEOPLE have emailed asking me to write more about the State of the Union. I’m probably the wrong one to ask. As a general rule, I hate State of the Union addresses. The last two were different — 2002 was close after 9/11, and 2003 was a lead-in to Iraq. Last night’s, at least once you got past the war part at the beginning, was more typical: a bunch of domestic nostrums that for the most part were either mere gestures (steroids?) or things the federal government shouldn’t be doing anyway (basically, everything about education).

I can’t critique Bush’s gay marriage proposal because I still can’t figure out what he was saying. (I suspect that my confusion is fully intended). The federal government has no business telling states what their marriage laws ought to be. Of course, I basically favor gay marriage anyway — though (and I guess it’s possible that this is all Bush was saying, though I doubt it) I agree that it would be better to see it adopted by legislation than by judicial decision.

Well, like I said, I find run-of-the-mill State of the Union addresses pretty awful: smarmy, full of cliches and obvious efforts to tug at the heartstrings, well larded with pork and posturing. But, you know, they’re not for me. Whenever I find myself grimacing at these, I’m reminded of a direct mail consultant who talked to the board of a nonprofit I used to run. He asked us if we liked the advertisements for porcelain collector plates. Everyone said no. “That’s OK,” he responded. “Those ads are aimed at people who like porcelain collector plates. You’re not their target market.” I’m pretty sure I’m not the target market for the State of the Union addresses, either, though I’m not sure who is. . . .

I’m utterly unimpressed with Bush’s domestic spending program, but I’m not its target market, either. Nor, sadly, is there anywhere else to turn: According to the National Taxpayers’ Union, the Democratic candidates are all worse. Fundamentally, there’s not a big enough voter cohort in support of fiscal restraint. Like it or not (and I don’t) the voters are pretty much getting what they want in terms of spending. That may or may not prove terrible for the country — people have been doomsaying about deficits for pretty much my whole lifetime — but there’s no question in my mind that the money contributing to the budget-bloat would be better spent if it was still in the taxpayers’ pockets. The only problem is that the taxpayers (or at least the voters, an overlapping but not fully contiguous set) don’t seem to feel the same way.

UPDATE: This isn’t exactly a Fisking of the State of the Union, but in places it comes pretty close: “I give you a D for your domestic agenda. Other than your tax cuts, you have accomplished little.”

Meanwhile, if you missed it, here’s a column by Victor Davis Hanson offering a more positive take on the foreign-relations part of the SOTU, which was clearly the better portion.

I’M AFRAID I HAVE TO AGREE WITH MATT WELCH that James Taranto’s characterization of Democrats who booed the Patriot Act as the “al Qaeda Cheering Section” is over the top.

I’ve been a Patriot Act skeptic — to put it mildly — since pretty much day one. It’s not all bad (and even John Kerry pointed that out last night on ABC) but the overall mindset, and the bureaucratic opportunism, that it represents is a bad thing. And “Homeland Security” remains pretty much of a joke today: lots of pork and gold-plating, lots of new bureaucracy, and not a lot of obvious benefit for security. What’s more, Steven Brill’s account of Ashcroft’s role in the Patriot Act’s drafting, which I blogged here back in April, is just devastating.

There’s no question that the Democrats have demonized the Patriot Act and tried to turn it into a political weapon against Bush — and it’s hypocritical given the 1994 and 1996 “crime” and “terrorism” bills, which were basically more of the same. But that hardly turns them into an “Al Qaeda cheering section.”

UPDATE: Steve Sturm says that Matt and I are wrong.

IOWAN DAVID HOGBERG offers a wrapup on the Iowa caucuses.

I LIKED this Amazon customer review of the Corvids CD: “I expected a passable vanity project – ‘Oh look, a writer’s making a record, how cute!’ Instead, I found a fantastic bunch of songs that smell like whiskey and feel like summer.” Any artist should be overjoyed to get a review like that.

LINK PROPAGATION and credit — some interesting observations.

SOME INTERESTING OBSERVATIONS on the difference between conservatism and libertarianism.

DANIEL DREZNER NOTES the persistence of soft power.

HERE’S AN INTERESTING DEVELOPMENT in an ongoing scandal:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – French bank Credit Lyonnais and a French government agency pleaded guilty on Tuesday to U.S. felony charges stemming from the takeover of a failed California insurer as part of a $772 million settlement reached last month. . . .

A separate settlement resolved all federal claims against French billionaire Francis Penult and his holding company, Artemis S.A., which agreed to pay $185 million in fines.

I’ll bet there’s an interesting backstory.

IT’S BEEN A WHILE since I’ve linked to the Grouchymedia site, but he’s got some new videos up that you might enjoy.

BRANCH OUT in your blog-reading: Carnival of the Vanities is up for this week.

A FEW WEEKS AGO, I wrote this column inspired by David Baron’s book, The Beast in the Garden, which is about the way romanticized attitudes about dangerous animals led to people being killed by mountain lions in Colorado. Since then, still more people have been killed by mountain lions, in California.

So it’s interesting to see this oped by an Alaskan, from the Los Angeles Times of all places:

I am puzzled now by the strange way people here are dealing with mountain lions — which is to say, letting them kill you. . . .

Why would anyone go into mountain lion country without the means to protect themselves from attack? I notice the police are armed. The wardens and rangers are armed. Indeed, anyone with any clue where they are would be armed.

The title: “Walk Softly and Carry a Big Gun.”

UPDATE: Reader Jeff Johnson emails:

I used to live in Orange County in the later part of the ’80’s and would go mountain biking in a wilderness park near the one where the recent maulings took place. At that time, 1989 to be exact, there were signs posted to warn visitors to be on the alert for mountain lions. Several years prior to then a small child was killed by a mountain lion and the park service was sued for not properly warning people. I don’t know what part of “wilderness” these people didn’t understand. Anyway, I always stuck a handgun in my rear bag when I rode out there. I figured it was a lot easier to explain to the police why I had to shoot a mountain lion than to explain to my wife’s parents why I couldn’t do anything while a lion was attacking their daughter. And since my Texas father-in-law was an avid hunter, I don’t think I would have been able to make him understand something like that. Besides, I’d be more afraid of facing him for not carrying a firearm than the police for carrying one.

The advice from my uncle who lives in Alaska was, “Always take a firearm into the woods that can bring down the biggest animal that lives there.”

Of course, that can be a pretty big gun. Meanwhile Boulder reader Tony Apuzzo writes:

It’s illegal to defend yourself against Mountain Lion attacks in Boulder, Colorado. Well, at least via a “weapon” or “firearm”.

He seems to be right:

Possession or discharge of a firearm or weapon, including paint ball guns, is prohibited on OSMP.

Why: Visitors with weapons jeopardize the safety of other visitors and wildlife.

You’d think that they’d be more worried about huge carnivorous animals, wouldn’t you?

DICK MORRIS: “Desperate to keep control of the Democratic Party, the Clintons used their negative researchers and detectives to the ultimate and generated a story-a-day savaging Dean.”

Hmm. If this is true, is a third-party run by Dean more likely?

THE EU IS WAKING UP:

Europe’s apparently doomed attempt to overtake the US as the world’s leading economy by 2010 will today be laid bare in a strongly worded critique by the European Commission.

The Commission’s spring report, the focal point of the March European Union economic summit, sets out in stark terms the reasons for the widening economic gap between Europe and the US.

It cites Europe’s low investment, low productivity, weak public finances and low employment rates as among the many reasons for its sluggish performance.

The draft report, to be published by the Commission today, warns that without substantial improvements “the Union cannot catch up on the United States, as our per capita GDP is 72 per cent of our American partner’s”.

Hmm. Bloated public sectors, high taxes, excessive regulation, and inflexible hiring rules probably have something to do with it.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE WASHINGTON POST? This “News Analysis” piece by David Von Drehle misquotes Bush to make U.S. operations in Iraq sound less multilateral:

“Some critics have said” U.S. foreign policy is too unilateral, Bush allowed, before ticking off a list of 17 countries with troops in Iraq and citing his teamwork with “the international community” to contain threats in North Korea and Iran.

But here’s what Bush actually said:

Some critics have said our duties in Iraq must be internationalized. This particular criticism is hard to explain to our partners in Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Italy, Spain, Poland, Denmark, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, the Netherlands, Norway, El Salvador, and the 17 other countries that have committed troops to Iraq.

(Emphasis added.) So the Post characterization actually halves the number of countries involved. (Yeah, Bush only “ticks off” 17 of them, but he mentions the other 17. Not reporting that is pretty hard to defend). Darren Kaplan — who noticed this before I did, and whose post has more background — is certainly “ticked off” at the Post.

Until recently, the Post has been a lot fairer than this. What gives?

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Looks like they “selectively quoted” him, rather than misquoting. By Washington Post standards, that’s considered exercising “good editorial judgement.” Some might call it spin, and some will, and they will be correct.

Actually, I think it’s worse than that. It’s an indirect quote — and it’s an inaccurate indirect quote. That’s not just selective quotation — it’s a misrepresentation of what Bush actually said. A relatively small one, compared to some others, but one for which there’s no real excuse. As Kaplan points out, other papers managed to get it right.

Meanwhile, Porphyrogenitus emails with this explanation for the Post’s shift: “It’s an election year.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Newspaperman reader Jon Ham emails:

In addition to the selective inaccurate quoting, the Post’s copy editors didn’t catch the Copy Editing 101 glitch in the piece. A policy can’t be “too unilateral.” It’s either unilateral or it’s not. There are no degrees of unilateral, just as there are no degrees of unique.

Good point. I had missed that.

MORE: Reader Dave Robertson says that Ham is wrong:

Mr. Ham would be correct if only real definitions were applied. But in anti-Bush political speech, “unilateral” means either “without prior UN approval” or “without active participation of France & Germany”. No matter how many nations participate, Iraq will always be unilateral. Too unilateral is the emphatic variant of unilateral.

And since Bush was already unilateral in Iraq, multilateral can never be applied to any Bush endeavor. Therefore, the U.S. is being unilateral in North Korea by wanting to have multi-nation talks. The multilateral position would be for the U.S. to agree to North Korea’s demands and have on-on-one talks.

What worries me is that this makes sense. . . .

NEWS FROM KOREA:

The food and fuel situation up north is pretty grim, and it’s making the security forces up there nervous. Lots more North Koreans are openly expressing a “I don’t give a damn” attitude. Just like Eastern Europe in 1989. The current food crises is a result of foreign donors refusing to contribute food for North Korea because the government has not allowed foreigners to observe where the donated food goes. Other witnesses have consistently reported that the donated food goes to the armed forces and is not sent to areas where there has been unrest, or where the government suspects there might be unrest (because a number of locals have fled to China or Russia.) Currently, some twelve percent of North Korea’s population, that was getting food aid, has been cut off. New supplies will not arrive for several months.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler has a story taking a rosier view of North Korea’s situation. But not everyone is convinced.

PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY: My TechCentralStation column is up.

“THEY LIKE BUSH, AND THEY ARE NOT STUPID:” Australian journalist Caroline Overington reports on American voters.

HALLIBURTON MANIA! Last week it was Joe Conason making Halliburton and Mars noises (though he’s backpedaled since, protesting that he never really meant that Halliburton wanted oil from Mars — which would make sense, though if so then the oleaginous spin that he put on his piece can only be explained as an effort to get gullible lefties thinking just that while maintaining plausible deniablilty. Well, sort of plausible, anyway, at least to the gullible.) Anyway, now it’s Clarence Page in the Chicago Tribune, doing the Halliburton shuffle:

Like a lot of big firms, Halliburton has had its eyes on the moon and Mars for quite a while. Halliburton scientist Steve Streich helped author an article in Oil & Gas Journal two years ago titled “Drilling Technology for Mars Research Useful for Oil, Gas Industries.”

The article, unearthed last week by Progress Report, a daily publication of the liberal Center for American Progress, described the exploration of Mars as an “unprecedented opportunity” for the drilling industry and a “great potential for a happy synergy” between space researchers and “the oil and gas industry.”

Seriously, this is getting more and more like the increasingly baroque Clinton conspiracy theories.

UPDATE: Reader Jonathan Michael Hawkins emails:

Has no one seen the movie Armageddon? If you need to drill, you call in the oil and gas people. Even liberal Hollywood filmmakers know that.

Yep.

“FOR DIPLOMACY TO BE EFFECTIVE, WORDS MUST BE CREDIBLE — and no one can now doubt the word of America.” — George Bush, the State of the Union, January 20, 2004.

“Diplomacy has more to do with (credible) threats than with sweet reason. And ‘threats from America’ are a lot more credible, nowadays.” InstaPundit, January 18, 2004.

UPDATE: Stephen Green is blogging the SOTU in realtime, so I don’t have to. His take on Bush’s many domestic initiatives (steroid testing? opposition to gay marriage?) is pretty much mine: unimpressed: “On domestic policy, Bush is the Republican Bill Clinton. No issue is too small to get his attention, if he can throw a few million dollars at it and claim ‘progress.'” I guess you have to do some of this if you’re President. But I don’t have to like it. I like the Social Security privatization, though.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Bush looks better now that the Democratic reply is on. Nancy Pelosi’s unblinking, wide-eyed stare-into-the-camera delivery is just creepy. (“Please meet my captors’ demands.”) But judging from what she said — and from the fact that every member of the CNN focus group, Democratic and Republican, thought the war was worth it — I think that Ed Cone was clearly right to say that criticism of the war is approaching its sell-by date. And the Dems’ program proposals aren’t any more impressive than Bush’s. (Daschle says that when our parents were kids, all Americans could go to good schools. Really? When my parents were kids, schools were segregated.) I kind of like Daschle’s effort to coopt Newt Gingrich’s “opportunity society” phrase, though.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Kerry’s on ABC, waffling when asked how he’ll vote on Bush’s legislative proposals. Now he’s waffling on the gay marriage issue — he voted against the Defense of Marriage Act under Clinton, but he doesn’t support gay marriage now. He describes his vote as “an act of courage.” Then he says he agrees with Bush, but that Bush is trying to find “wedge issues.” Now he’s talking about Equal Protection — but he doesn’t say what that means for gay marriage. And now he’s swerved off into affirmative action, all without ever answering Peter Jennings’ questions about gay marriage. Lame.

MORE: The Democratic response got panned by the MSNBC focus group — even by the Democrats. Pelosi and Daschle are criticized for delivery, lack of message. Chris Matthews notes that Tom Daschle never mentioned Iraq. Yeah, they left that to Pelosi, which doesn’t seem like a good move. Bill Frist notes that only the Republicans stood up and applauded the prescription drug benefit. (I wouldn’t have applauded it. Then again, I’m not a Republican.)

Meanwhile, Bill Hobbs has more analysis on the State of the Union (Tom Petty is invoked), and Spoons was liveblogging. So was Capt. Ed. (Best line: “A Republican president bragging about a 36% increase in Federal spending on education. I join the Democrats in sitting on my hands for that one. If only I were bloated, I could do a Ted Kennedy impression.”) Meanwhile Howard Fineman is making fun of the Democrats for stressing the importance of food labeling. Daschle and Pelosi’s TV skills are derided again: “They should have just turned it over to Martin Sheen.” Ouch.

STILL MORE: Roger Simon exposes my ignorance. And a final note: The pundits all love Edwards now.

MERYL YOURISH says that Daniel Pipes is wrong: There’s nothing “feminist” about a veil.

THIS WOULD SEEM TO BE BAD NEWS FOR THE DEMOCRATS: According to Daniel Weintraub:

Dean and Clark are atop what looks like a two-man race for the Democratic presidential delegates from California, but President Bush holds at least a narrow lead in hypothetical matchups with all the Democratic contenders. So says the latest Field Poll.

Bush leading in California? If California is even in play, he’s going to be pretty tough to beat. I’d be inclined to doubt this poll, but hey — I’ve already been wrong that way once this week. . . .

DONALD SENSING WRITES that Andrew Sullivan is wrong about preemption:

While I see Andrew’s point, I don’t entirely agree. There are two actors in any potential pre-emption situation, us and the other country.

What Andrew says in his post is that the Iraqi WMD picture painted by the American intelligence apparatus was so spectacularly wrong that using WMD weapons or programs as an element of the casus belli for future military actions against a foreign power can’t be credible anymore. . . .

The lesson here for us is to do intelligence better, but the lesson for would-be foreign leaders seeking WMDs may well be that secrecy and bluffing are a good way to find oneself on the wrong end of regime change.

That seems to be what motivated Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddaffi to abandon WMD programs.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Spoons says that Sensing is right on substance, but Sullivan is right on politics.

BUT IT SEEMS LIKE YESTERDAY WHEN IT WAS BORN! Eric Muller’s blog, Is That Legal? is a year old today.

EVAN COYNE MALONEY interviews MoveOn.org supporters who stand up for reasoned debate, and in opposition to hatred. Don’t miss this video!

IRAQI BLOGGER ZEYAD gets a writeup in Salon.