ZZZZZZZState of the Union
If George Bush's State of the Union speech had been half as good as Schuyler's new drink, we may not have dozed off and on. The drink, Irish Shillelagh, was zippy enough to awaken the dead, which is more than can be said for Bush's speech, which was, Carmen commented, the speech of a dead man.

Carmen and Jim both thought, that if the speech didn't put you to sleep and you actually heard it, you might have thought Jon Stewart, from The Daily Show, had written the speech, it was so comical. Well, Carmen said, comical and delusional all in one.

Jim thought it was great payback, when in an aside to the Democrats conceding defeat on his attempt to destroy Social Security, the Democrats stood and cheered and clapped, mussing up poor George's face into that petulant pout he's so famous for. It actually caught him off guard that the Democrats would do that to him on his special night.

On the podium, Liz told us, he looked very much like Richard Nixon waving goodbye as he climbed into the helicopter for the last time, all the wind gone from his sails. Gone were the rants and taunts, the saber-rattling and the war mongering, though, Liz said, he did, in his typical underhanded, secretive style, have the speech fed live in Farsi to the people of Iran, wishing them Godspeed in their fight for democracy. For once, however, he didn't mention regime change overtly, or threaten Jeffersonian tanks to overthrow the Iranian regime. When Elizabeth asked Liz why she thought he was silent on the subject, we all had opinions and theories, but Max perhaps summed it up best for us. He said that Bush was mum on many subjects because as his limp presidency winds down, the best word to describe it is grotesque. Grotesque ineptitude, corruption, human rights record, environmental impact record and of course, grotesque quagmire in Iraq and almost total failure in Afghanistan. The economy in the U.S.? There are more poor people in the United States today than when Bush took over from President Clinton. Our Treasure: squandered.

Max On The Grotesque Bush Administration
Max, with a twinkle in his eye, said that the smirk was wiped off Bush's face, and that really, since there was nothing good going on in the White House, Bush was faced with the dilemma of how to fill the 51 minutes he spent at the podium. Max pointed out that really, Bush couldn't talk about very much of substance, because everything about his presidency had turned out substantially wrong, and that's not the kind of substance you want to talk about with the world watching.

He couldn't, Max said slyly, talk about his victory in Louisiana and Mississippi. He couldn't talk about his myriad triumphs in Iraq. Could he talk about vanquishing poverty in these Great United States? Well, no, not really since poverty has risen every year he's been in power.

For one brief shining moment though, Alex chimed in, he did thrill one group: the über-rich, vowing to fight for making their obscene tax cuts permanent. But immediately, he fell back into inane mumbling because he couldn't really talk about the energy crisis in a rational way. He did say, of course, that we are addicted to oil. Also, he couldn't rationally decry the results of democratic elections by the Palestinians, since he's the one wanting to ram it down the throats of every country in the Middle East.

Sagidah laughed, wistfully, and said that he could not only not talk about his triumphs in Iraq, her homeland, but he certainly could not talk about progress in Afghanistan, which the Taliban are fast taking over again.

And Back to Karen Hughes
Jeez, Liz said, do you think she's dead? Have you heard from her lately? Did Bush bother to parade her before or after the State of the Union? After all, she was given a sumptuous title, and Bush promised to unleash her upon the world to change the hearts and minds of people everywhere. Wasn't she going to undo the harm Bush caused in Pakistan? Wasn't she going to vanquish the Taliban by telling the people over there how she loves to drive in Texas? Wasn't she going to de-burka the entire Middle East and get every woman in a car? Why didn't he sing her praises during his speech?

Well, Liz said, grandiose titles don't mean diddly squat, and squat is exactly what George did, except he squatted on his spiky spurs and you could see it in his demeanor at the podium. Sad little speech for a president who wasn't even voted into office the first time around. And, sadly, he hasn't even learned the first thing a Texan learns: don't squat with yer spurs on!

Our Own Parade: To a Post-State of the Union Address Dinner
Tonight, most of us contributed to dinner, which was a good thing because it allowed everybody in the kitchen to continue the conversation we had begun in the great room. Our first delicious course, Champiñones al Ajillo (olive-oil and garlic mushrooms) were baked in clay, using several oval clay gratin dishes from Emile Henry. The recipe for the tapas was straight from Spain, and the tapas were paired perfectly with Domecq's Fino Sherry La Ina. Since we farm and ranch, we have dinner fairly early. If you were having tapas in Madrid, you wouldn't think of even going to your local bar till close to midnight.
Our soup tonight was the hot version of one of our favorite cold soups, Vichyssoise. Hot, it's called Parmentier and tonight it was a very gratifying course. We had it with an Alsatian Pinot Blanc from Pierre Sparr.

Once again, the teenagers had been clamoring for Mexican or Southwestern cuisine, so we prepared a couple of dishes we knew they would like. Rania and Sagidah were fascinated when they took cooking classes from a lady who lives just outside our "neighborhood" and who taught them how to make tamales. So, tonight they prepared salmon tamales and shrimp tamales. The tamales were served very simply with slices of perfect avocadoes. The Basserman-Jordan German Riesling chosen to go with the tamales was a very good match and also serves to show Riesling's versatility.

Another favorite of ours is Black Mole with Turkey. Because we don't have any Mexican clay cooking vessels, we again went to the clay pots of Emile Henry to make the Mole, which really should never be prepared in anything but clay cooking vessels.

When the Mole was served over the turkey, the plates were adorned with perfectly cooked Mexican rice, black beans, and as a counterpoint to the spices in the Mole, fried plantains. For the Turkey Mole, we decided to serve a white wine on the heavy side, and chose an Australian Sémillon, the excellent Knappstein-Lenswood.

Wow. Dinner, prepared by a lot of us, turned out better than expected and was a lot more palatable than the Pablum we were fed by Bush.

We were all grateful to Carmen for making her famous flan for us, since after all, what could be better after a Mexican dinner than flan? She also, kindly, had brought over several bottles of German Eiswein (ice wine) to pair with the flan.

After Dinner Coffee
As we headed back to the great room for our after-dinner coffee and time with the teenagers, Liz told us what Clarence Darrow had once said, "When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become president of the United States. I am beginning to believe it." That seemed to fit you know who to a 'T.' Nothing special, just anybody. Certainly no brilliance and absolutely no legacy.

Summary:
No Brilliance in This State of the Union Address
President Bush's talk to the nation was so lackluster it put many people to sleep. He said nothing of substance, and the speech will always be characterized more for the shameful facts about his administration that he left out than for anything he did say. Somebody forgot to tell Bush that a State of the Union speech is supposed to be a report on the nation's condition. It is supposed to report to We The People what the government has done in the previous twelve months, and that was glaringly missing. Just as glaringly missing, squandered: our treasure.