John's Blog

Again, The Onion demonstrates the very thin line between satire and reality in their regular "What do you think?" feature where they look at The State of the Union address.

Content to assume that the traditional assembly of meaningless hot air followed by rounds of polite applause would occur once again, I found something else to watch last night. But we can take some solace in the knowledge that this is the last time we will be subjected to this. Even this quickly becomes a "good news/bad news" scenario, since we are going to have one more year to sit on pins and needles and hope he doesn't do any thing rash and foolish in an attempt to cement his legacy. Although don't let that imply that what he has done so far has been wise and well considered; just hoping he doesn't screw things up worse in his lame duck days.

Typical of how Dubya just doesn't get it right is found in the story told by Scott Horton, The Illustrated President. Bush has been enamored with a painting of a cowboy done by W.H.D. Koerner titled "A Charge to Keep". He describes it as a painting of a horseman charging up steep and treacherous terrain as he spreads the Gospel through the West. Bush has viewed it as symbolic of his own "born-again" conversion and says it reminds us how we must serve the greater good.

However, the real story is perhaps far more colorful. Research into the painting reveals that the horseman isn't a missionary, but in fact a horse thief escaping from a lynch mob. Oh well, the symbolism still works just fine.

Tags: politics, TV, humor