Bush's STFU SOTU

Maha points us to No More Mister Nice Blog who had this to say about Little Boot's speech:

Tonight I watched Clinton's successor -- the president in my lifetime who has aged the least while in office, even though he's served nearly two full terms and dealt with terrorism, war, recession, and utter rejection by the American public. I don't think it's just the mountain biking -- tonight as I watched his speech and watched him transition from domestic matters, which clearly bore him, to the parts about Iraq and Iran, which seem to send a jolt of bitter, angry energy right across his neck and shoulders, it became obvious to me (if it wasn't already) that these have been great years for George W. Bush, because he feels he's doing vitally important things, he feels all kinds of people hate the way he's doing those things -- and he just loves both those feelings.

Clinton often radiates utter glee on the campaign trail; Bush's bliss doesn't manifest itself in glee but, rather, in smugness and defiance -- in looking down at his enemies and thinking, "I won. You lost." His victory, of course, is permanent war -- he's a Really Important Person now and nobody can take that away from him.

That's exactly right, and it is to our eternal shame that no one has taken that away from him, or in fact is ever likely to. We have allowed this little paper bully to spit in our faces, rob us blind and swagger off into the sunset feeling really proud of himself.

Maha herself gives us another great quote about Bush's call for "bipartisanship":

He's calling for bipartisanship. This is like Heidi Fleiss calling for chastity.