Last night, George W. Bush gave his third State of the Union address and promised unilateralism for another year. Shooting wry grins and smugness toward the left side of the aisle (which booed him once or twice), Bush said "Bring it on!" to any potential Democratic challenger. "You think you can touch me? You got nothin'!" He reminds me of Robert DeNiro's Al Capone from The Untouchables.

On health care, he used the "p-word"; on sex education, he used the "a-word." When it came to marriage, he used . . . well, he used several words. Some of them were "sanctity of marriage." You can imagine the rest.

Of course Bush is untouchable, and any Democratic candidate that thinks so is living in a dream world, possibly created by machines. Or not. The point here is that Bush delivered a spectacular "war on terror" which promises only to continue. He bagged Saddam Hussein, something his father couldn't do and Bill Clinton wasn't interested in doing. He's changed the dictatorial regimes of two countries and coerced Qadaffi, the scourge of the 1980s, into abandoning plans for weapons of mass destruction. In foreign policy, the "Bush Doctrine" of preemptive warfare will be written in the annals of history next to the "Reagan Doctrine" of intervening in countries where it was economically or politically expedient (but there was also socialism). Thanks to his foreign policy, Bush will surely be re-elected -- as long as a recession doesn't pop up between now and November. That was his father's death knell.

After addressing foreign policy, Bush turned his eyes to the long-neglected set of domestic issues, promising health care for everyone and lauding himself and Congressional Republicans for making prescription drugs more affordable to seniors and ensuring that no child is left behind (except the millions that will be). He also encouraged Congress to make tax cuts permanent and to phase out the estate tax (what Bush expertly titles the "death tax"). So, with tax cuts for everyone, how can we increase spending on social programs and wage a war on an abstract concept without falling victim to the most harsh of judges: math. Unless he declares a War on Math to make his numbers turn out right, Bush will fall victim to the "fuzzy math" that he himself articulated during the 2000 presidential election. Or, taking another cue from the Reagan School, he can deficit-spend even further. But wait! He also wants to balance the budget! Someone get this guy a calculator and some gin.

At the end of his speech, he affirmed the conservative Christian stance on abstinence education: more of it, and more money to it. This in spite of the evidence that abstinence-only education doesn't work (I wrote about it very angrily before the blog broke). Sure, telling kids not to have sex would mean that they wouldn't do it -- in a perfect world. Back in reality, where everyone else lives, kids do it and it's not the school's job to tell them to do it or not. This article in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune discusses the failure of the state's abstinence-only program. Also note that abstinence-only education is hopelessly intermingled with conservative Christian values.

But before he got to abstinence, Bush affirmed his support for a constitutional amendment to sanctify the marriage between a man and a woman. If it weren't for those gol-durn activist judges! What do they think they're doin', interpreting the Constitution in a way that Bush disagrees with?! We'll show 'em! We'll stall the judicial process for the next five years!

So, in closing, the State of the Union address merely affirmed my desire for a new president, since this one is hopelessly divisive and has his priorities all wrong.