Someone finally posted a version of Bush‘s State of the Union address online that was actually playable. So here it is. The thing that struck me the most was Vice President Dick Cheney‘s body language when the President was talking about energy policy and reducing our dependence on oil through an increased use of renewable and environmentally-friendly energy and stronger fuel efficiency standards. (Click here to jump to that portion of the speech.) The former CEO of Halliburton Energy Services and the architect of the Administration’s closed-door, oil-industry-only energy policy, appears to be just seething amidst all this talk of renewables and fuel standards:

Democratic Response

The Democrats wisely chose freshman Senator Jim Webb to repsond to the President’s speech. Webb is a Vietnam vet and former Navy secretary under Ronald Reagan and has  a son fighting in Iraq. He ousted George Allen from his Virginia Senate seat by running as an economic populist and an Iraq War critic. Webb criticized the President’s leadership on both the economy and on the Iraq War. It is by far the most effective State of the Union rebuttal I’ve ever watched: