Seriously, does anybody know? Because I certainly didn’t watch the President’s address last night, and judging by the ratings neither did you. Unless, that is, you’re a middle school civics teacher, an inmate in a prison ward where someone stole the TV remote in order to fashion it into a shiv, or a shut-in who can’t afford the monthly Netflix subscription fee.
However, even without having watched it I’m pretty sure I can guess what happened. After all, these Union-Statey things are usually pulled off the same boiler plate. Of course, all that can get rather boring, which is why no one watched, so I’m going to throw a little bit of flavor into my “coverage” of the address. Here it goes.
In his State of the Union address last night President Obama described our current state as, “Montana.” He went on to elaborate saying, “I would describe the current state of our union as ‘confused’, like a college chick who just had her first lesbian experience, or better yet, to go back to the union metaphor, like a married couple where the husband is acting kind of funny lately, and the wife thinks maybe he’s cheating on her, but it turns out he’s just really stressed at work.”
When talking about the economy, the President painted it in rosy terms, using phrases like “strong recovery”, “more jobs”, and “economic expansion”, but punctuated each declaration with an exaggerated wink. He even gave Vice President Biden a knowing nudge after touting what he saw as the coming explosion in green technology manufacturing. Biden responded by getting very excited and offering the President a high-five, while exclaiming, in a volume much louder than he intended, “I’m pickin’ up what you’re puttin down, bro!” Unfortunately for the Vice President, Obama had already turned back to the crowd, leaving him hanging.
Obama later covered the war in Afghanistan, directly addressing the upcoming troop withdrawal, saying, “My advisors and I have been poring over maps of the region, and we’ve decided that by this time next year we will have pulled almost our entire force out of Afghanistan, moving them to Kamchatka, Irkutsk, and the Urals, in an effort to solidify our position so we can take over Asia and get the seven point bonus that comes along with it.”
Many observers were disappointed when John Boehner became Speaker of the House a couple of years ago, because it meant the end of the popular Beltway drinking game where everyone did a shot whenever Nancy Pelosi blinked during the address. Luckily, someone came up with a new variation where shots are taken each time Boehner’s skin tone changes, whether it be from yellow to orange, sepia to urine, or falling-asleep-in-a-tanning-booth to volcanic eruption. As it turns out, due to Mrs. Pelosi’s inhuman lack of blinking, and Mr. Boehner’s wizard-like ability to change colors, this new drinking game led to a huge explosion in both alcohol consumption and congressional staff orgies.
There were several contorversial moments throughout the evening, such as when President Obama again called out the Supreme Court, this time in reference to their upcoming cases involving gay marriage, and the camera caught Justice Alito responding to the President’s comments with a throat-slitting motion. Then, while still discussing gay rights, the President turned to Senator Lindsey Graham, saying, “You know what I’m talkin’ about.” Lindsey didn’t seem to, but everyone else in attendance certainly did.
Later on, when Obama started talking about gun control, Biden stood up, drew his hands out of his pockets as if pulling a couple of six-shooters, and yelled, “This is what we’re going to do to all those pro-gun laws the NRA’s been shoving through congress.” He then turned to the Republican side of the aisle, his fingers fashioned into imaginary pistols, and began shooting at them while providing his own sound effects by shouting “pew-pew” each time he appeared to fire at the crowd.
Obama finished his speech with the usual “God Bless America” stuff but, instead of being played out by the traditional “Hail to the Chief”, he left the Capitol building to “Big Poppa” by Notorious B.I.G.
The Republican response was then given by Marco Rubio. In a nod to the party’s effort to woo more Latino voters, Rubio gave the entire speech in Spanish, which conveniently served to obfuscate the many derogatory names he called the President throughout, including “Puta”, “Cholo”, and “Bizcocho”. Rubio ended by bringing out Mexican-American action star Danny Trejo, who appeared drugged.
The night culminated with Senator Rand Paul giving the Tea Party response. Unfortunately for Paul, his speech writers, recruited directly from the Tea Party base, were still only remedial English speakers, thus leaving his speech full of errors of grammar and syntax, such as, “Me no like government. Government bad. President Obama, no!”
We are still awaiting the Frat Party response, which will presumably be delivered once they’ve recovered from the after effects of their John Boehner drinking game.