Checking In / State of the Union Preview

I don't have much time for blogging this week, so I'm just checking in while I have a chance. I'll guess I'll also use this opportunity to ask who's still reading this blog... step out from the shadows! How'd you find me? Enjoy your stay? What's your sign?

The big topic everyone can't stop talking about these days seems to be the increasingly large field of prospective 2008 presidential candidates. Obviously this race intrigues me (the first without an incumbent President or Vice President in a long time), but I have avoided the topic here for the most part. It's just too soon to speculate. Primary season is a year away, folks, let's focus on more pressing matters until then.

Speaking of pressing matters, tomorrow night is the annual State of the Union address... President Bush's first before a Democratic congress and one he undertakes at the lowest approval levels of his presidency. It'll be very easy to predict. We know he has no accomplishments from the past year to brag about (with the possible exception of a decently-performing stock market, but that might as well be French to most Americans); instead, we can expect retreads of previously failed proposals.

The biggest issue to address will be the Iraq war. He'll urge patience with the surge. And if the oh-so-obvious timing of a leak of insurgent-related documents is any clue, he will make the case that this war is a matter of life or death for the American people (fearmongering? ohh c'mon, that is sooo 2003).

Some increasingly scrutinized saber-rattling toward Iran is also a given.

Domestically, the President will push for a health-care plan involiving "a tax increase aimed at (some) people who already have employer-provided health insurance combined with a tax deduction aimed at (some) people who have to buy individual health insurance" (I wonder what happened to his 'Health Savings Accounts' proposal from last year's speech?). I predict that this will get as far as his Social Security privatization goal did. And, of course, as I noted last Thursday, President Bush will propose another half-assed energy policy, expecting us to ignore his empty promises from previous years. Reports indicate he will also discuss renewal of his No Child Left Behind education policy and his proposal for a guest-worker immigration policy (translation: do our work and then get out).

No doubt we should also expect lots of calls for 'civility' and 'bipartisanship' addressed to the new Congress, with perhaps a camera nod to a happy Joe Lieberman.

Sen. Webb will deliver the Democratic response. I'll probably watch 'Veronica Mars' instead.

[UPDATE: Feeling nostalgic? Here's a YouTube clip from Clinton's last State of the Union.

UPDATE #2 (1/23): Actually gonna watch? Play Wonkette's SotU drinking game!]