After last night

President Biden gave his long-awaited [?] State of the Union address last night. The White House has posted the text here. A few observations.

• The spectacle of Biden speaking in front of Vice President Harris and Speaker Pelosi was chilling. We are not a serious country.

• How silly and small did they look by contrast with President Zelensky and every Ukrainian official we have heard from over the past week?

• As Biden rushed through his text and slurred the words, I wondered if he was medicated.

• The text of the address provided by the White House does not reflect the speech as delivered. At one point, I heard Biden express support for the Iranians when he meant Ukrainians (“Putin may circle Kyiv with tanks, but he’ll never gain the hearts and souls of the Iranian people”). He supports the Iranians (the mullahs, anyway). Perhaps it was a Freudian slip.

• The White House text of the address omits Biden’s concluding words: “Go get him!” Or was it “Go get ’em!”? (It was, according to the New York Times transcript.) I thought the meds might be wearing off toward the end. Apparently not.

• Does he support the Ukrainians? Despite his protestations and bravado, the message I heard is: You’re on your own. That’s just the way it is. We are not even prepared to cut off our imports of Russian oil.

• The Biden administration will do nothing to call off its war on American energy production. That war will persist. As for the administration’s utter lack of seriousness, which was evident throughout the address, “that is all/Ye know on earth/and all ye need to know.”

• As for the administration’s utter lack of seriousness, which was evident throughout the address, consider Biden’s blithe observation: “[W]e need to secure the Border and fix the immigration system.” We need to secure the border, but it is Biden himself who undid it on the first day of his administration and he has no intention of doing it. Like the administration’s war on American energy production, the undoing will persist.

• Commenting on Biden’s prepared remarks over the past year, I have observed that he needs to call the speech doctor. As events required a focus on foreign policy, the White House speechwriters did not bother to put together a coherent speech. Weakness abroad comports with weakness at home.

• When he turned to domestic policy, the implicit message was: Stay the course! More of the same!

• Biden foresaw a better America next year. Toward his conclusion he assured us: “[W]e will be stronger a year from now than we are today.” Is there anyone who didn’t think that any improvement would come as a result of the election this November, with a Republican majority in at least one house of Congress to impede the administration?

• The trouble with inflation, according to Biden, is rising costs (“I think I have a better idea to fight inflation. Lower your cost, not your wages”). That’s a little like saying the trouble with insanity is serious mental illness, or the trouble with pain is that it hurts.

• Biden has big plans to deal with rising costs. Among them is a war on Big Meat. I kid you not: “Small businesses and family farmers and ranchers I need not tell some of my Republican friends from those states, guess what, you got four basic meat packing facilities. That’s it. You play with them or you don’t get to play at all. And you pay a hell of a lot more. A hell of a lot more because there’s only four.”

• For some reason or other, Big Meat only became a big problem following January 20, 2021.

• Is it wrong not to take the war on Big Meat seriously? Is it wrong to laugh at Big Meat? Is it wrong to laugh at Biden calling out Big Meat? Bill Murray, call your office.

• Biden announced “a crackdown on those companies overcharging American businesses and consumers.” For some reason or other, overcharging American consumers only became a big problem following January 20, 2021.

• Perhaps he can call on Hillary to bring back the Overcharge button she delivered to the Russians in the heyday of the Obama administration.

• Biden hasn’t given up on his Bummer Beyond Belief legislation. It appeared in a new guise as “building a better America” and other such variants more lethal than Omicron. Indeed, it appeared as part of his plan to fight inflation: “Seventeen Nobel laureates in economics said my plan will ease long-term inflationary pressures.” We need more government welfare spending to “ease long-term inflationary pressures.”

• The stupidity in the speech was pervasive. It is lethal. There is no known cure for it.

• Biden advocated support for mental health. I can go with him this far. I support mental health help for anyone who felt obligated to listen to Biden’s address last night.