The State of the Union 2005
The State of the Union, it is completed!
*wipes sweat from fevered brow*
Here you go, your very own translated version of President Bush's State of the Union Address out of Washington-speak and into real English. As always, my Democratic bias is totally apparent. Somehow I don't think that bothers you all that much, though, does it?
BUSH: Dick, Denny, you freshmen House members waving your forefingers at me, you Democrats waving a different finger at me, fellow Americans brutally disappointed to see me rather than Jennifer Gardner, good evening.
As we suffer together in this cramped and overcrowded House chamber, we reflect on how we were all elected by the American people. Given the range of opinions we represent, we must wonder exactly what crack the American people were smoking to think a group this diverse would ever be able to get along.
We American politicians share the privilege of being elected along with folks in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine. Those countries have recently mastered the fine art of ballot stuffing, but have not yet reached the “stupefyingly dull speeches” part of governmental evolution.
CONGRESS: *standing ovation*
BUSH: If you, developing nations, ever do get to the boring speeches section, please, for the love of God, get over the standing ovation part.
Two weeks ago I stood outside this building, in the cold, while Members of Congress locked all the doors and refused to let me in. I have since had them all deported to Guantanemo Bay for questioning. Kidding! No, two weeks ago I gave a speech where I declared that America/Freedom was the OTP, OMG! I didn’t, however, give a lot of what you call details in that speech. Tonight, I will talk around the potential problems of my new vision, and it will take a lot longer than my last speech. But because I am charismatic, like whoa, I’m sure no one will mind me taking up an hour of television time on every freaking channel.
REPUBLICANS: *standing ovation*
DEMOCRATS: *surly silence*
REST OF AMERICA: *breaks out the booze*
BUSH: Tonight I come here to tell you that the state of our Union…totally blows! Hahahaha!
CONGRESS: *dead silence*
BUSH: Oh, the looks on your faces. No one ever says that, gang. I mean, of course, that our nation is confident and strong.
CONGRESS: *standing ovation*
BUSH: Our generation has been blessed by the generations before planning ahead, providing us with new opportunities, an expansion in medical care, and security for our upcoming retirements. For this we say, thank you very much. Too bad we’re taking it all for ourselves, there, you people who aren’t Baby Boomers!
CONGRESSIONAL STAFFERS: We hate you.
BUSH: Again, kidding. I come before you, the Congress, who are always so good at tackling the tough issues and totally not punting them until the next election cycle when it might not be your problem any more, to help us fix things for the next generation. Or we can just take the money and run. I’m fine with whatever, really.
CONGRESS: *standing ovation*
BUSH: Over the last four years we have screwed up the tax system, made and sort of overcome a recession, and come up with 2.3 million new jobs last year alone, which almost makes up for all those other jobs that were lost.
REPUBLICANS: *standing ovation*
DEMOCRATS: *muttering*
BUSH: But you, the Congress, totally rock, and I absolutely love coming up here every year and boring you all to tears.
DEMOCRATS: *sarcastic clapping*
REPUBLICANS: *start throwing paper airplanes*
BUSH: And so next week I’ll be sending up the annual budget, which you will ignore. In it I’ll cut 150 programs that I don’t like but are probably hugely popular in your districts. I’ll try to make the tax cuts permanent, which will totally hose the national debt for the next decade or so, and I’ll also try to cut the deficit in half by 2009.
REPUBLICANS: *standing ovation*
DEMOCRATS: *cross arms, roll eyes*
BUSH: We need to train our young people to be productive folks for the 21st Century, and right now, our young people are kind of stupid.
CONGRESS: *applauds, shares knowing looks*
BUSH: We’ve tried with No Child Left Behind, but you know when we didn’t fund it, it turns out that our children? We left ‘em behind. Ooops. So we’ll keep on foisting off some unfunded mandates on our schools and make sure that they don’t teach evolution or decent literature, and then we’ll shake our heads and wonder why China and India are blowing past us in technical fields. We’ll try to strengthen our community colleges and we’ll also throw some money (don’t ask where it’s coming from) at Pell Grants to help kids afford college, since it currently costs about a gazillion dollars a year.
CONGRESS: *applauds*
BUSH: We have to stop crushing the dreams of the small businessman, too, folks. I have heard from people that Ted Kennedy personally goes around South Boston and crushes the dreams of as many as ten small business owners a week, that bastard. To counter him, I ask you all to get rid of silly things like regulations and accountability through lawsuits. Class action lawsuits and false asbestos claims are of the devil, ya’ll! You need to get on the stick about these.
CONGRESS: *looks confused*
JOHN KERRY: *looks pained*
BUSH: To make life better for everyone, we need to make health care more affordable, give families more options and greater control.
DEMOCRATS: That sounds pretty good.
BUSH: We’ll do this by giving lower income folks tax credits to pay for health care that might not even be available in their area. We’ll set up a community health center in every poor county with money that we don’t have. We’ll throw money at technology to prevent medication screw-ups. We’ll allow small business owners to get together with one another and form health care associations.
DEMOCRATS: Wait a minute…
DICK CHENEY: *smirks*
DENNY HASTERT: *hasn’t blinked yet*
BUSH: And we’ll put a legal cap on the amount of money people can sue for if your doctor accidentally leaves a scalpel in your abdomen, because those things happen.
REPUBLICANS: *applaud*
DEMOCRATS: *surly silence*
BUSH: And to keep our economy growing, we need to invest in affordable, environmentally responsible energy.
GALE NORTON: *laughs hysterically*
BUSH: Especially nuclear energy, but mostly just because I’ve learned how to say “nuclear” and Andy Card makes me put into every single speech now. But yes, we should get rid of our dependence on foreign oil and pass my “Clean Skies” bill, the most egregiously named piece of legislation since the PATRIOT Act.
REPUBLICANS: *applaud*
BUSH: And-
REPUBLICANS: *applaud*
BUSH: Jesus, guys, wait for me to complete a thought first.
DEMOCRATS: *stick tongues out at Republicans*
BUSH: Those thoughts that I just shared with you, those are some things I want you all to be thinking about, but really I’m buttering you up for my big proposals. We need to fix some of our antiquated governmental programs.
DEMOCRATS: *give him the stink-eye*
BUSH: I’m talking about the tax code, you ninnies! You thought I meant Social Security, didn’t you? Didn’t you? That’s a fake-out, my friends! The tax code is stupid, archaic and impossible to understand, so I’m appointing a bipartisan commission of really, really boring people to try to make some sense of it. They will put out a huge report that will come pre-dusty for our convenience, and we will promptly forget all about it.
CONGRESS: *applauds*
BUSH: Our immigration system is also pretty broken, so I’m going to bring back the idea I had when I was elected four years ago to allow temporary guest workers to come and take all those jobs that Americans don’t want to do.
BORDER STATE REPRESENTATIVES: *applause*
BUSH: And we also need to fix Social Security because the END IS NIGH!
DEMOCRATS: BOOOOOOOO!
BUSH: You haven’t even heard my proposal yet.
DEMOCRATS: BOOOOOOOO!
BUSH: But before I get to my proposal-
DEMOCRATS: BOOOOOOOO!
BUSH: Shut up. Before I get to my proposal, I want to let those of you who are 55 and older know that the system will not change for you at all. Everyone who’s 54, though, is completely hosed.
Social Security was created in a different era, when old people were supposed to shuffle off and die and not keep living for freaking ever like they are now. My proposal is…to kill all the old people!
DEMOCRATS: Seriously?!
BUSH: No. Idiots. Just the ones who voted for Kerry.
KERRY: *glares*
BUSH: The way it works, guys, is that Social Security is a pyramid scheme, and one that only works when there are more people paying into the system than are taking money from the system. Right now there are three workers paying into the system for every money-grubbing old person taking money from it. This balance will change in 2018, when Social Security will be paying out more than it takes in, assuming we don’t do anything to change the system like we’ve been tweaking it for years, but whatever. And then the END WILL BE NIGH, OMG!
DEMOCRATS: Whatever.
BUSH: I will listen to anyone with a good idea about how to fix this problem. We’ll be investing in planes to fly over cities telling people to call the White House switchboard with ideas of how to fix the program. Many people, mostly Democrats like John Breaux, Bill Clinton and Daniel Patrick Moynihan have come up with concepts that might save Social Security. We won’t actually be following any of the ideas that those people had, though, because I’ve already come up with the One True Way, and if you don’t follow it, you’re all evil.
DEMOCRATS: *throw tomatoes*
BUSH: So we’re going to come up with personal security accounts. This is exactly like privatizing, except we discovered that the word “privatizing” doesn’t poll well so we’ve made up another way to talk about it.
REPUBLICANS: *standing ovation*
DEMOCRATS: *buff nails, look bored*
BUSH: Here’s the way it would work. Instead of putting your money into the big Social Security pot, you’d put your money into individual pots. And you get to keep the money AND the interest. And then we’ll index your money using the Stock Market, and then the market’ll crash and TAKE ALL YOUR MONEY WITH IT. Isn’t that fun? Well, we’ll try to set up safeguards to make sure that doesn’t happen, but whatever.
REPUBLICANS: *cheer, scream like Orlando Bloom teenyboppers*
DEMOCRATS: *stony silence*
BUSH: So you didn’t like that, eh, Democrats? You’re really gonna hate the next part of this speech, then.
In addition to teaching our children how to read and write and figure out where the hell Iran is on a map, we also need to teach them values. Which isn’t the government’s responsibility, but I’m making a couple of exceptions. The first one is that gay people should never be allowed to marry ever, ever, ever. Therefore we should totally put a Constitutional Amendment down for time and all eternity saying this, so that when it’s overturned in a few decades our children can read about it in textbooks and roll their eyes at the gross stupidity of their ancestors, much in the same way we talk about Prohibition.
REPUBLICANS: *standing ovation*
DEMOCRATS: *gobsmacked looks of horror*
BUSH: And we also need a culture that respects all life down to the teeniest little embryo and amoeba and stuff. I’m glad that you’ve doubled the funding for NIH to help fight some of our deadliest diseases-
MRS. CHRISTOPHER REEVE: *applauds*
BUSH: But stem-cell research is bad, bad, bad.
MRS. CHRISTOPHER REEVE: Fuck you, asshole.
BUSH: We should make sure that embryos are never grown in farms and used to make arms and legs and stuff like you’ve seen on the Sci-Fi channel because as everyone knows, first comes the immoral scientists and then comes the aliens and soon we’re all pledging allegiance to some green-skinned freak that only pretends to be human.
CHENEY: *looks uncomfortable*
BUSH: Anyway. We also need to make sure all of the members of the judiciary are in line with my strict constructionalist views on what they should do. I sent tons of judges up to the Senate and they’ve confirmed 90 percent of them, which is damn impressive, but do they give an up-or-down vote on the floor to all of them, even the ones that are obviously not qualified? No.
REPUBLICANS IN THE HOUSE: Booooo!
SENATORS: Yeah, well, bite us. It’s Never. Gonna. Happen.
BUSH: Okay, then. Moving on. We need to encourage faith-based organizations to keep on helping out in those crappy sections of America that my handlers don’t let me go to. We need to focus on our young people, especially young men in the inner cities, to give them an option that’s not gangs or jail. It’s called the Army, and we’re running short on people to ship to Iraq, so join on up! You/Army is so the new cool trend!
Anyway. I propose a three-year initiative tonight that would work to keep young men out of jails, headed by someone who really understands what it’s like to be a black man growing up in the inner cities: my wife, Laura Bush.
LAURA BUSH: *looks heavily medicated*
CONGRESS: *applauds*
BUSH: We, and by “we” I mean “you,” of course, should also reauthorize the Ryan White Act to continue fighting the dangers of HIV/AIDS. But we shouldn’t teach children about safe sex or condoms, or prevention or anything because my hypocrisy iz pastede on, yay!
CONGRESS: *applauds*
BUSH: The most important thing we can do, though, for future generations, after we muck around with Social Security and work to make them less dumb, is to protect them from evil terrorists who want to kill everyone.
CONGRESS: Oh, God. He’s only halfway finished, isn’t he?
*gets out Washington Post crossword puzzles*
BUSH: In the three and a half years since 9/11, we’ve done all sorts of cool things to protect America. We’ve established a Department of Homeland Security that I didn’t want until I realized it was going to pass anyway. We’ve focused the FBI on searching for terrorists, which they’re not really all that good at, frankly. We’ve trained first responders around the country with funding I didn’t want to give them.
Police, firefighters, air marshals, that guy with the wand at the airport that feels you up because your belt set off the metal detector-thank you all.
CONGRESS: *standing ovation*
BUSH: Our nation, working with allies and friends, has totally been working on getting rid of the evils of al Qaeda. Yeah, the network is still around, but now it has new leaders because we’ve captured a whole bunch of the old ones. There are still governments that harbor terrorists-Iran, Syria, we’re looking at you-but their number has decreased by one. And a half, maybe, because Libya is trying to make nice with the rest of the world now. Go us!
CONGRESS: *applauds*
BUSH: But terrorists still want to destroy our country and kill most of us in painful ways. That’s why when I send up the budget next week, you can’t possibly be upset about how many billions of dollars I want to spend on the military because that will make you an Unpatriotic Traitor.
DON RUMSFELD: *looks evil*
DENNY HASTERT: *still hasn’t blinked*
BUSH: Other nations around the world have even pitched in, which frankly shocked the hell out me. We have 28 countries helping us in Iraq, some of which I can even pronounce, and the EU and the UN got off their high horses and helped us out on the elections, so yay. We’re still tracking nuclear proliferation and making sure that North Korea doesn’t pull a nutty on us and send us all into oblivion in a mushroom-clouded haze.
CONGRESS: *supposed to stand, is too tired to get up any more*
BUSH: So now I’m all about coalitions. Coalitions, yay! But the only way to get rid of terrorism permanently is to eliminate the conditions that breed hate. And the only way to stop hate is to drop giant truck loads of freedom on everyone! Freedom for all! Even those people we don’t like all that much!
Everyone should try freedom! It whitens teeth, makes julienne fries, and comes with a money-back guarantee! Come on, there, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Freedom tastes great and is less filling.
Now, we’re not trying to impose our way of life on the rest of the world even though our way of life is totally the best.
CONGRESS: *waves signs that say “World/Freedom OTP”*
BUSH: Tomorrow we’re shipping Condi off to the Middle East. She’s going to bring peace to the region by taking them a check for $350 million, so go her. The goal of two peaceful democracies, Palestine and Israel, is way closer to happening than it has been at any other time in the last three weeks, so we think we’ve got a pretty good window here.
CONGRESS: *applauds*
BUSH: But to really bring peace to the Middle East, we need to spend some time and money smacking around Iran. I mean, talk about Iran with concern. After all, they have plutonium and uranium, and, as Secretary Rumsfeld told me just recently, kryptonite. They could bring down Superman, folks! They are evil and must be destroyed.
RUMSFELD: *makes slashing signs across his throat*
BUSH: *shuffles papers* Heh. That appears to be a page from a speech for six months from now called “Iran is Evil and Must Be Destroyed.” My bad. But let me just say this to the Iranian people: we stand with you and your cause of liberty.
CONGRESS: *does the wave*
BUSH: But back to our current war. Iraq is the current front line for freedom, and we will succeed because the Iraqi people value the ideals of liberty and freedom, too. They showed that by going to the polls on Sunday and voting when they had a pretty good chance at being shot at.
CONGRESS: *standing ovation*
BUSH: This is in direct contrast with Americans who don’t vote because it means they might be missing a rerun of “Smallville.” Here, I will shame you, the stupid American, by introducing Human Prop #1, a real live female Iraqi who voted!
HUMAN PROP #1: *cries, waves from First Lady’s box*
LAURA BUSH: *still looks heavily medicated*
HASTERT: *still hasn’t blinked*
BUSH: We will win in Iraq because the Iraqis really want to control their own country, so they’re getting on the stick about learning security skills and how to make the electricity turn on and how to stop their current fuel crisis and stuff. The elections were a big step-
CONGRESS: *standing ovation*
BUSH: But don’t be counting on our troops coming home any time soon.
CONGRESS: *looks disappointed*
BUSH: Our troops are incredibly loyal, amazingly competent at their jobs, and are working every day to make our nation more secure.
CONGRESS: *standing ovation, as required when our troops are ever mentioned, as passed in the If You Don’t Stand Up You’re a Heartless Bastard Who Kills Kittens and Eats Them Act of 1957*
BUSH: And we’ve said goodbye to some troops who will be remembered by our nation forever. One of those was the son of Human Props #2 and #3, a Marine from Texas who was killed in assault on Fallujah. When he was assigned to Iraq, his mom told him that she wished she could protect him like she had when he had been little. He told her that it was his turn to protect her now.
HUMAN PROPS #2 & #3: *stand up, weeping*
CONGRESS: *applauds, weeping*
PEOPLE WITH HEARTS OF STONE: *weeping*
HASTERT: *manages to weep without blinking*
BUSH: Freedom can totally change the world. It’s our duty to spread the peace that freedom brings. We’ll spread that peace through force of arms if necessary.
In conclusion: Freedom, freedom, freedom, Iraq, Social Security, freedom. Yay, God.
Good night.
CONGRESS: *standing ovation*
*wipes sweat from fevered brow*
Here you go, your very own translated version of President Bush's State of the Union Address out of Washington-speak and into real English. As always, my Democratic bias is totally apparent. Somehow I don't think that bothers you all that much, though, does it?
BUSH: Dick, Denny, you freshmen House members waving your forefingers at me, you Democrats waving a different finger at me, fellow Americans brutally disappointed to see me rather than Jennifer Gardner, good evening.
As we suffer together in this cramped and overcrowded House chamber, we reflect on how we were all elected by the American people. Given the range of opinions we represent, we must wonder exactly what crack the American people were smoking to think a group this diverse would ever be able to get along.
We American politicians share the privilege of being elected along with folks in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine. Those countries have recently mastered the fine art of ballot stuffing, but have not yet reached the “stupefyingly dull speeches” part of governmental evolution.
CONGRESS: *standing ovation*
BUSH: If you, developing nations, ever do get to the boring speeches section, please, for the love of God, get over the standing ovation part.
Two weeks ago I stood outside this building, in the cold, while Members of Congress locked all the doors and refused to let me in. I have since had them all deported to Guantanemo Bay for questioning. Kidding! No, two weeks ago I gave a speech where I declared that America/Freedom was the OTP, OMG! I didn’t, however, give a lot of what you call details in that speech. Tonight, I will talk around the potential problems of my new vision, and it will take a lot longer than my last speech. But because I am charismatic, like whoa, I’m sure no one will mind me taking up an hour of television time on every freaking channel.
REPUBLICANS: *standing ovation*
DEMOCRATS: *surly silence*
REST OF AMERICA: *breaks out the booze*
BUSH: Tonight I come here to tell you that the state of our Union…totally blows! Hahahaha!
CONGRESS: *dead silence*
BUSH: Oh, the looks on your faces. No one ever says that, gang. I mean, of course, that our nation is confident and strong.
CONGRESS: *standing ovation*
BUSH: Our generation has been blessed by the generations before planning ahead, providing us with new opportunities, an expansion in medical care, and security for our upcoming retirements. For this we say, thank you very much. Too bad we’re taking it all for ourselves, there, you people who aren’t Baby Boomers!
CONGRESSIONAL STAFFERS: We hate you.
BUSH: Again, kidding. I come before you, the Congress, who are always so good at tackling the tough issues and totally not punting them until the next election cycle when it might not be your problem any more, to help us fix things for the next generation. Or we can just take the money and run. I’m fine with whatever, really.
CONGRESS: *standing ovation*
BUSH: Over the last four years we have screwed up the tax system, made and sort of overcome a recession, and come up with 2.3 million new jobs last year alone, which almost makes up for all those other jobs that were lost.
REPUBLICANS: *standing ovation*
DEMOCRATS: *muttering*
BUSH: But you, the Congress, totally rock, and I absolutely love coming up here every year and boring you all to tears.
DEMOCRATS: *sarcastic clapping*
REPUBLICANS: *start throwing paper airplanes*
BUSH: And so next week I’ll be sending up the annual budget, which you will ignore. In it I’ll cut 150 programs that I don’t like but are probably hugely popular in your districts. I’ll try to make the tax cuts permanent, which will totally hose the national debt for the next decade or so, and I’ll also try to cut the deficit in half by 2009.
REPUBLICANS: *standing ovation*
DEMOCRATS: *cross arms, roll eyes*
BUSH: We need to train our young people to be productive folks for the 21st Century, and right now, our young people are kind of stupid.
CONGRESS: *applauds, shares knowing looks*
BUSH: We’ve tried with No Child Left Behind, but you know when we didn’t fund it, it turns out that our children? We left ‘em behind. Ooops. So we’ll keep on foisting off some unfunded mandates on our schools and make sure that they don’t teach evolution or decent literature, and then we’ll shake our heads and wonder why China and India are blowing past us in technical fields. We’ll try to strengthen our community colleges and we’ll also throw some money (don’t ask where it’s coming from) at Pell Grants to help kids afford college, since it currently costs about a gazillion dollars a year.
CONGRESS: *applauds*
BUSH: We have to stop crushing the dreams of the small businessman, too, folks. I have heard from people that Ted Kennedy personally goes around South Boston and crushes the dreams of as many as ten small business owners a week, that bastard. To counter him, I ask you all to get rid of silly things like regulations and accountability through lawsuits. Class action lawsuits and false asbestos claims are of the devil, ya’ll! You need to get on the stick about these.
CONGRESS: *looks confused*
JOHN KERRY: *looks pained*
BUSH: To make life better for everyone, we need to make health care more affordable, give families more options and greater control.
DEMOCRATS: That sounds pretty good.
BUSH: We’ll do this by giving lower income folks tax credits to pay for health care that might not even be available in their area. We’ll set up a community health center in every poor county with money that we don’t have. We’ll throw money at technology to prevent medication screw-ups. We’ll allow small business owners to get together with one another and form health care associations.
DEMOCRATS: Wait a minute…
DICK CHENEY: *smirks*
DENNY HASTERT: *hasn’t blinked yet*
BUSH: And we’ll put a legal cap on the amount of money people can sue for if your doctor accidentally leaves a scalpel in your abdomen, because those things happen.
REPUBLICANS: *applaud*
DEMOCRATS: *surly silence*
BUSH: And to keep our economy growing, we need to invest in affordable, environmentally responsible energy.
GALE NORTON: *laughs hysterically*
BUSH: Especially nuclear energy, but mostly just because I’ve learned how to say “nuclear” and Andy Card makes me put into every single speech now. But yes, we should get rid of our dependence on foreign oil and pass my “Clean Skies” bill, the most egregiously named piece of legislation since the PATRIOT Act.
REPUBLICANS: *applaud*
BUSH: And-
REPUBLICANS: *applaud*
BUSH: Jesus, guys, wait for me to complete a thought first.
DEMOCRATS: *stick tongues out at Republicans*
BUSH: Those thoughts that I just shared with you, those are some things I want you all to be thinking about, but really I’m buttering you up for my big proposals. We need to fix some of our antiquated governmental programs.
DEMOCRATS: *give him the stink-eye*
BUSH: I’m talking about the tax code, you ninnies! You thought I meant Social Security, didn’t you? Didn’t you? That’s a fake-out, my friends! The tax code is stupid, archaic and impossible to understand, so I’m appointing a bipartisan commission of really, really boring people to try to make some sense of it. They will put out a huge report that will come pre-dusty for our convenience, and we will promptly forget all about it.
CONGRESS: *applauds*
BUSH: Our immigration system is also pretty broken, so I’m going to bring back the idea I had when I was elected four years ago to allow temporary guest workers to come and take all those jobs that Americans don’t want to do.
BORDER STATE REPRESENTATIVES: *applause*
BUSH: And we also need to fix Social Security because the END IS NIGH!
DEMOCRATS: BOOOOOOOO!
BUSH: You haven’t even heard my proposal yet.
DEMOCRATS: BOOOOOOOO!
BUSH: But before I get to my proposal-
DEMOCRATS: BOOOOOOOO!
BUSH: Shut up. Before I get to my proposal, I want to let those of you who are 55 and older know that the system will not change for you at all. Everyone who’s 54, though, is completely hosed.
Social Security was created in a different era, when old people were supposed to shuffle off and die and not keep living for freaking ever like they are now. My proposal is…to kill all the old people!
DEMOCRATS: Seriously?!
BUSH: No. Idiots. Just the ones who voted for Kerry.
KERRY: *glares*
BUSH: The way it works, guys, is that Social Security is a pyramid scheme, and one that only works when there are more people paying into the system than are taking money from the system. Right now there are three workers paying into the system for every money-grubbing old person taking money from it. This balance will change in 2018, when Social Security will be paying out more than it takes in, assuming we don’t do anything to change the system like we’ve been tweaking it for years, but whatever. And then the END WILL BE NIGH, OMG!
DEMOCRATS: Whatever.
BUSH: I will listen to anyone with a good idea about how to fix this problem. We’ll be investing in planes to fly over cities telling people to call the White House switchboard with ideas of how to fix the program. Many people, mostly Democrats like John Breaux, Bill Clinton and Daniel Patrick Moynihan have come up with concepts that might save Social Security. We won’t actually be following any of the ideas that those people had, though, because I’ve already come up with the One True Way, and if you don’t follow it, you’re all evil.
DEMOCRATS: *throw tomatoes*
BUSH: So we’re going to come up with personal security accounts. This is exactly like privatizing, except we discovered that the word “privatizing” doesn’t poll well so we’ve made up another way to talk about it.
REPUBLICANS: *standing ovation*
DEMOCRATS: *buff nails, look bored*
BUSH: Here’s the way it would work. Instead of putting your money into the big Social Security pot, you’d put your money into individual pots. And you get to keep the money AND the interest. And then we’ll index your money using the Stock Market, and then the market’ll crash and TAKE ALL YOUR MONEY WITH IT. Isn’t that fun? Well, we’ll try to set up safeguards to make sure that doesn’t happen, but whatever.
REPUBLICANS: *cheer, scream like Orlando Bloom teenyboppers*
DEMOCRATS: *stony silence*
BUSH: So you didn’t like that, eh, Democrats? You’re really gonna hate the next part of this speech, then.
In addition to teaching our children how to read and write and figure out where the hell Iran is on a map, we also need to teach them values. Which isn’t the government’s responsibility, but I’m making a couple of exceptions. The first one is that gay people should never be allowed to marry ever, ever, ever. Therefore we should totally put a Constitutional Amendment down for time and all eternity saying this, so that when it’s overturned in a few decades our children can read about it in textbooks and roll their eyes at the gross stupidity of their ancestors, much in the same way we talk about Prohibition.
REPUBLICANS: *standing ovation*
DEMOCRATS: *gobsmacked looks of horror*
BUSH: And we also need a culture that respects all life down to the teeniest little embryo and amoeba and stuff. I’m glad that you’ve doubled the funding for NIH to help fight some of our deadliest diseases-
MRS. CHRISTOPHER REEVE: *applauds*
BUSH: But stem-cell research is bad, bad, bad.
MRS. CHRISTOPHER REEVE: Fuck you, asshole.
BUSH: We should make sure that embryos are never grown in farms and used to make arms and legs and stuff like you’ve seen on the Sci-Fi channel because as everyone knows, first comes the immoral scientists and then comes the aliens and soon we’re all pledging allegiance to some green-skinned freak that only pretends to be human.
CHENEY: *looks uncomfortable*
BUSH: Anyway. We also need to make sure all of the members of the judiciary are in line with my strict constructionalist views on what they should do. I sent tons of judges up to the Senate and they’ve confirmed 90 percent of them, which is damn impressive, but do they give an up-or-down vote on the floor to all of them, even the ones that are obviously not qualified? No.
REPUBLICANS IN THE HOUSE: Booooo!
SENATORS: Yeah, well, bite us. It’s Never. Gonna. Happen.
BUSH: Okay, then. Moving on. We need to encourage faith-based organizations to keep on helping out in those crappy sections of America that my handlers don’t let me go to. We need to focus on our young people, especially young men in the inner cities, to give them an option that’s not gangs or jail. It’s called the Army, and we’re running short on people to ship to Iraq, so join on up! You/Army is so the new cool trend!
Anyway. I propose a three-year initiative tonight that would work to keep young men out of jails, headed by someone who really understands what it’s like to be a black man growing up in the inner cities: my wife, Laura Bush.
LAURA BUSH: *looks heavily medicated*
CONGRESS: *applauds*
BUSH: We, and by “we” I mean “you,” of course, should also reauthorize the Ryan White Act to continue fighting the dangers of HIV/AIDS. But we shouldn’t teach children about safe sex or condoms, or prevention or anything because my hypocrisy iz pastede on, yay!
CONGRESS: *applauds*
BUSH: The most important thing we can do, though, for future generations, after we muck around with Social Security and work to make them less dumb, is to protect them from evil terrorists who want to kill everyone.
CONGRESS: Oh, God. He’s only halfway finished, isn’t he?
*gets out Washington Post crossword puzzles*
BUSH: In the three and a half years since 9/11, we’ve done all sorts of cool things to protect America. We’ve established a Department of Homeland Security that I didn’t want until I realized it was going to pass anyway. We’ve focused the FBI on searching for terrorists, which they’re not really all that good at, frankly. We’ve trained first responders around the country with funding I didn’t want to give them.
Police, firefighters, air marshals, that guy with the wand at the airport that feels you up because your belt set off the metal detector-thank you all.
CONGRESS: *standing ovation*
BUSH: Our nation, working with allies and friends, has totally been working on getting rid of the evils of al Qaeda. Yeah, the network is still around, but now it has new leaders because we’ve captured a whole bunch of the old ones. There are still governments that harbor terrorists-Iran, Syria, we’re looking at you-but their number has decreased by one. And a half, maybe, because Libya is trying to make nice with the rest of the world now. Go us!
CONGRESS: *applauds*
BUSH: But terrorists still want to destroy our country and kill most of us in painful ways. That’s why when I send up the budget next week, you can’t possibly be upset about how many billions of dollars I want to spend on the military because that will make you an Unpatriotic Traitor.
DON RUMSFELD: *looks evil*
DENNY HASTERT: *still hasn’t blinked*
BUSH: Other nations around the world have even pitched in, which frankly shocked the hell out me. We have 28 countries helping us in Iraq, some of which I can even pronounce, and the EU and the UN got off their high horses and helped us out on the elections, so yay. We’re still tracking nuclear proliferation and making sure that North Korea doesn’t pull a nutty on us and send us all into oblivion in a mushroom-clouded haze.
CONGRESS: *supposed to stand, is too tired to get up any more*
BUSH: So now I’m all about coalitions. Coalitions, yay! But the only way to get rid of terrorism permanently is to eliminate the conditions that breed hate. And the only way to stop hate is to drop giant truck loads of freedom on everyone! Freedom for all! Even those people we don’t like all that much!
Everyone should try freedom! It whitens teeth, makes julienne fries, and comes with a money-back guarantee! Come on, there, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Freedom tastes great and is less filling.
Now, we’re not trying to impose our way of life on the rest of the world even though our way of life is totally the best.
CONGRESS: *waves signs that say “World/Freedom OTP”*
BUSH: Tomorrow we’re shipping Condi off to the Middle East. She’s going to bring peace to the region by taking them a check for $350 million, so go her. The goal of two peaceful democracies, Palestine and Israel, is way closer to happening than it has been at any other time in the last three weeks, so we think we’ve got a pretty good window here.
CONGRESS: *applauds*
BUSH: But to really bring peace to the Middle East, we need to spend some time and money smacking around Iran. I mean, talk about Iran with concern. After all, they have plutonium and uranium, and, as Secretary Rumsfeld told me just recently, kryptonite. They could bring down Superman, folks! They are evil and must be destroyed.
RUMSFELD: *makes slashing signs across his throat*
BUSH: *shuffles papers* Heh. That appears to be a page from a speech for six months from now called “Iran is Evil and Must Be Destroyed.” My bad. But let me just say this to the Iranian people: we stand with you and your cause of liberty.
CONGRESS: *does the wave*
BUSH: But back to our current war. Iraq is the current front line for freedom, and we will succeed because the Iraqi people value the ideals of liberty and freedom, too. They showed that by going to the polls on Sunday and voting when they had a pretty good chance at being shot at.
CONGRESS: *standing ovation*
BUSH: This is in direct contrast with Americans who don’t vote because it means they might be missing a rerun of “Smallville.” Here, I will shame you, the stupid American, by introducing Human Prop #1, a real live female Iraqi who voted!
HUMAN PROP #1: *cries, waves from First Lady’s box*
LAURA BUSH: *still looks heavily medicated*
HASTERT: *still hasn’t blinked*
BUSH: We will win in Iraq because the Iraqis really want to control their own country, so they’re getting on the stick about learning security skills and how to make the electricity turn on and how to stop their current fuel crisis and stuff. The elections were a big step-
CONGRESS: *standing ovation*
BUSH: But don’t be counting on our troops coming home any time soon.
CONGRESS: *looks disappointed*
BUSH: Our troops are incredibly loyal, amazingly competent at their jobs, and are working every day to make our nation more secure.
CONGRESS: *standing ovation, as required when our troops are ever mentioned, as passed in the If You Don’t Stand Up You’re a Heartless Bastard Who Kills Kittens and Eats Them Act of 1957*
BUSH: And we’ve said goodbye to some troops who will be remembered by our nation forever. One of those was the son of Human Props #2 and #3, a Marine from Texas who was killed in assault on Fallujah. When he was assigned to Iraq, his mom told him that she wished she could protect him like she had when he had been little. He told her that it was his turn to protect her now.
HUMAN PROPS #2 & #3: *stand up, weeping*
CONGRESS: *applauds, weeping*
PEOPLE WITH HEARTS OF STONE: *weeping*
HASTERT: *manages to weep without blinking*
BUSH: Freedom can totally change the world. It’s our duty to spread the peace that freedom brings. We’ll spread that peace through force of arms if necessary.
In conclusion: Freedom, freedom, freedom, Iraq, Social Security, freedom. Yay, God.
Good night.
CONGRESS: *standing ovation*