State of the Union

I wasn't that thrilled with my efforts at live-blogging the governor's State of the State address. Commenting on something that's still in progress leads to short, shallow posts lacking a lot of insight, and it's hard to pay attention to what someone is saying right now when you're reacting to and typing about what he said a minute ago. So for the president's State of the Union speech tonight, I'll do it a little differently. I'll watch the whole thing, then post a lengthy reaction to the entire speech. If you want to weigh in, I'll try to have it up within a half-hour of his finish.

I'm not especially optimistic about the speech. I'd like to hear something more thematic than programmatic, an uplifting address about where America is at this point and where President Bush thinks we need to go. I'll fear we'll get another laundry list of things the government can do for us. Given what an expensive mess the Medicare prescription program is, heaven knows where a health-care initiative might take us.