Liveblogging the Non-SOTU SOTU

That’s “State of the Union” for the uninitiated. You’ll get updates once the Hope-monger gets rolling. In the mean time, today’s Dilbert strip pretty well captures the zeitgeist:

8:40: Yes, I’m still alive. Twitter, you see, is a very seductive mistress.

9:00: The cavalcade begins.

9:03: Nobody electrifies a room quite like the Supremes. No, not them. The black robe types.

9:05: Sec. Geithner arrives: the face that launched a billion sell orders.

9:11: And here we go. Obama starts working the crowd. Very. Slowly.

9:13: The meet and greet continues. Shelby, Hatch, Clinton, Roberts.

9:15: He brought manila envelopes! He’s such a cheapskate on gifts.

9:16: Okay, somebody didn’t rehearse. Maybe Obama just subconsciously makes everybody flub ceremonial pronouncements?

9:18: MSNBC broke out an annoying voter reaction meter doohickey. Somebody sure told him to be uplifting out of the gate, didn’t they?

9:20: Obama: To make myself look better, I’m gonna tell you everything that Dubya did wrong. And what a list it is.

9:23: He’s got an agenda! Who knew? In case you didn’t know what the party line in seating arrangements was, I guess you know now.

9:24: This “save or create” thing is a total CYA operation. In other news, it’d be great if the stimulus bill would actually do those things you just said.

9:25: Mitch McConnell may actually be a Jim Henson puppet.

9:26: “Nobody messes with Joe!” Damn straight, bitches.

9:27: The people MSNBC got for its ratings totally weren’t a representative sample. Their “Obama voters” only like his soaring rhetoric and they must have found the most liberal “McCain voters” they could. The latter are giving higher marks than the former.

9:28: Okay, here we go. Actual policy prescriptions. GOP sits inert, Dems cheer wildly. Wait … now, less inert. We already heard about the housing plan (which sounds suspiciously like a Ditech ad), but what was that consumer loan facility he was talking about back there?

9:30: Um … Richard Shelby fell asleep. Seriously?

9:31: “The cost of action will be great, but the costs of inaction would be greater.” Mmmph. Are you sure? Can we see your work there?

9:32: Some guy behind Sen. Specter was leafing through a program. Who knew those existed? Is there a Playbill for this thing?

9:33: Obama is slathering the populist rhetoric on pretty thick here, even for him. In other news, at least he can explain the multiplier effect accurately.

9:34: Some boos from the peanut gallery on a call for new regulation. Will he give us some specifics here?

9:35: Charlie Rangel may actually be dead.

9:36: The prez sees his budget as a vision … which is a pretty high bar to set for a phone book-sized bureaucratic monstrosity.

9:37: Obama: Remember all that awesome stuff government did before most of you were born? Well we can do it again — despite all evidence to the contrary!

9:38: Energy, health care, and education. Yeah, yeah, important stuff. Does Pelosi have a spring built into her chair or what? She is WAY too eager to jump up and applaud.

9:39: Well that’s great and all, man, but America doesn’t have a comparative advantage in manufacturing anymore. Get over it.

9:41: Oooh, the car industry is going to be “re-imagined”! Does that involve Steve Jobs? In other news, I don’t think we actually did invent the automobile.

9:43: Okay, but what IS health care reform? It seems to mean spending more money. (Lay off the Red Bull, Nancy.)

9:44: I think Obama’s getting frustrated. His soaring oratory doesn’t work so well when people want to give him a standing ovation every 30 seconds.

9:45: When did Teddy Roosevelt talk about health care? And does that mean that we’ll actually fix health care this year, or that this will be the last year of the American civilization? Because, honestly, that’s a coin flip in terms of plausibility.

9:46: Yeah. Education good. Got it.

9:47: Geez, again with the “reform.”

9:48: On being a HS dropout: “You’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on this country.” That’s … honestly creeping me out a little bit … kind of a propagandistic, totalitarian flourish.

9:49: Yeah, you’re on camera, Hatch. Wake up. So if you clean up a park, do you get a 90% off coupon for Harvard or what?

9:51: Now we see if Obama has any actual plans to reduce the deficit … or if he’s just gonna say it emptily. Damn, it’s nice to see some levity in these things. Bush and Clinton were so dour.

9:53: Wait … you’ve identified $2 trillion in savings? Really? Damn. Maybe you actually did do more than throw some lip service into this. Still nowhere near enough, but it’s something.

9:55: Yeah, that “no tax hikes under $250K/year” bit isn’t … entirely accurate. But really, if you’re not gonna suddenly eliminate social security or anything, you’re gonna need those taxes.

9:56: Obama gets some brownie points from me for not pulling crazy accounting tricks in the budget. Guess what: Six years in, Iraq isn’t still “emergency spending.”

9:58: Looks like he’s wrapping it up with the military stuff. He’s not putting his decision to set a 19-month timetable for withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq into this thing tonight, which is … strange.

9:59: Let’s not have vets starving and dying. Can we get on that?

10:00: It’s still sad that we have to make a big deal out of not torturing people. I mean, really, that’s kinda like your fire department expecting gratitude for not setting your house on fire.

10:02: Why the hell did they just cut to Sully?

10:03: Breaking News: Ayn Rand has just rolled over in her grave after hearing that story about the bank president.

10:05: Well played, random South Carolina girl.

10:06: See, Obama actually enjoys this job. That is an improvement — you got the sense that Dubya never really wanted to run the country and would have much preferred to just walk away from Washington in mid-2007 and never come back.

10:08: Alright then. Sappy, but a good finish.

10:10: Off to the media: Keith Olbermann is just going crazy with adulation, tapping the “crisis as opportunity” vein. David Gergen and John King are besides themselves with the scope of Obama’s ambition. Carl Cameron … previews Gov. Jindal’s response.

10:15: He’s freakin’ signing autographs!

10:18: Looking back to thoughts on FNC: Outside of O’Reilly/Hannity, they generally don’t come at you all-out with their bias. They’ll play issues straight, but choose very carefully what they will talk about, upgrading and downgrading the importance of things based on how they want to shape the news. Along with their ever-popular format of “Some people (i.e. everyone) believe X, but other people (who are completely discredited by everyone else) disagree! We’ll give it to you fair and balanced!” news pieces, they insidiously portray neutrality with a straight face.

10:20: Okay, enough negativity from Brit Hume. Let’s hear Rachel Maddow gush!

10:22: I guess we’re serious about energy conservation: Most of the lights in the House chamber are already out.

10:24: Um, the Governor’s Mansion in Louisiana is a plantation house? Does it still come with slaves? MSNBC can’t even disguise their disgust at Jindal, who … sounds way goofier than he did on Meet the Press two days ago. He’s talking to me like I’m in kindergarten.

10:26: Americans cannot do anything. I’m sorry, but no.

10:27: So you Republicans have got ideas, eh? Care to share them?

10:27: No, Bobby, not in the form of a story about Hurricane Katrina.

10:28: Yeah, you knew there was a bad “storm” metaphor out there.

10:29: Okay, a train from LA to Vegas and volcano monitoring systems seem like very good things to spend money on, compared with the alternatives. Will you quit it?

10:30: Tax cuts. Got it.

10:31: Is the GOP too poor to hire good writers?

10:32: I swear, if you say that line one more –

10:33: *sigh* I thought you were a thoughtful, principled conservative that I could respect. Not so much now.

10:34: You find hope in the American people, Bobby? Have you met some of us?

10:34: I really don’t think most of the GOP is as bothered by spending as its leaders are assuming that they are.

10:35: Did you really just try to say that Obama isn’t being hopeful enough, Bobby?

10:36: There’s your big 9/11 reference. You … really should stop that. And we are NOT the freest society on earth.

10:37: Okay. Thank goodness that’s over. Maddow is absolutely speechless and beside herself, it seems.

10:38: Over on FNC, even Krauthammer wasn’t impressed by Jindal, which should be like throwing a rock into the ocean from the beach. Chuckles tries to lower expectations and … talked about the nice room.

10:40: Well, I guess we now know how Democrats ended up in power. That … was stark. Good night, everybody.