David Brooks versus the sans-culottes

Tonight W. gives his State of the Union Address and it's sure to be anything but. The real state of the union is pretty shabby, but you won't hear that from our dear leader. As the consequences of his criminal misrule mount, one wonders why there isn't more outrage from the American public. Maybe, it's because they get so little actual truth from the media.

And speaking of truth and the media, I can't wait to see Brooks and Shields tonight after the speech recapping the "bold initiatives" the president will announce. Shields will be dipping from his flask under the table and Brooks will be expounding on the progress of the president's policies in Iraq and the strong economy.

I can hear Brooks now, 'My gosh, Exxon made more money than any corporation in history last year, that must mean things are on the upswing! So, they're ripping off the American taxpayers for hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid fees on natural gas taken from publicly owned land. Don't you understand, silly liberals, their profit margins are so slim they can barely stay in business.! [NYT]

All these naysayers are all of bunch of liberal crybabies!Everybody knows---and even liberal economist Stephan Rose has to admit---"that only 19 percent of males and 27 percent of females are poor or working poor----a percentage that is 'probably much smaller than most progressive commentators would admit.'" Yeah, Al Gore, stop trying to "rally the insecure working majority against the privileged minority." You know, some analysts are starting to think "there is no frightened majority longing for government succor." [NYT]

Damn straight! Those 238 (probably a lot more than that) people living on the streets of Center City Philadelphia and the 3,080 in shelters---of whom 1,063 are children---just need to get over it. [Inquirer]

I don't know if David Brooks gets out into the streets of DC too often, but he might have noticed some of those people not "longing for government succor" sleeping over vents and huddled under sleeping bags at Metro Station, or not. See, they're not the ones the democrats should be worried about according to Brooks; they don't vote! This seems to be the point of Brooks' lecture to liberals. Most polls show, Brooks says, that people from 26 to 59 are making an average annual income of $63.000 and they feel they're "doing quite well and don't feel oppressed by forces beyond their control." Well, bully for them!

Jill Carroll:

Yesterday, as the media moved their wall-wall coverage of an American journalist being held hostage in Iraq to the injuries of ABC anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt---and reported incessantly on the wonders of modern military medicine---Jill Carroll was seen again in another video this time dressed in Arab head gear and sobbing. Her captors are still threatening to kill her unless the US military releases all Iraqi female prisoners. This time, the military can't claim that the only hostages they have---and won't release---are Dr. Germ and Mrs. Anthrax, they've been released. No, this time, possibly one of the reasons Jill Carroll and her family have to suffer so terribly is because the military is holding the wives and mothers of suspected insurgents. This tactic just has red- white-and-blue, apple pie and fairplay written all over it, doesn't it?

Nancy Youssef reports for the Inquirer that, "A series of e-mails written by U.S. soldiers and an internal Army memo, which were released Friday in response to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, describe two cases of women who were imprisoned because U.S. officials wanted information about their husbands."

AP reports, "Iraq's deputy justice minister, Busho Ibrahim Ali, dismissed such claims, saying hostage-holding was a tactic used under the ousted Saddam Hussein dictatorship, and 'we are not Saddam.'"

But, apparently, we are.