I read the newspaper every day, and I like to consider myself fairly well informed, but I didn’t listen to or read transcripts of the State of the Union Address.  Like most Americans, I didn’t vote for Bush.  Not that it made a difference.  So anyway, I prefer to not really listen to him, relying instead on reports in the paper, which allow me to take a break in between horrified cringes.  

Not so last night, though.  We were watching The Daily Show (probably the most fair and balanced news show on the air!!) and they played excerpts from the address.  Thank goodness for comedy, because it wasn’t until well after the show was over that it finally sunk in that one of our nation’s new priorities is eliminating steroid use.  Steroid use, people!!  Starvation, inadequate medical care, poor education, rising crime, all these things that are rampant enough in society to have a negative impact upon hundreds of thousands of lives, all take a backseat to preventing steroid use!  These are your tax dollars at work.  

I suppose it’s important that we not add tolerance of drug-enhanced athletes to the list of things for which other countries despise us.  Let’s stop the tide with warmongering and gun violence and rude tourists.  We’ve already got a bad reputation for those, so there’s no need to fix them, right?  Embarrassment doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel right now.  I want a big neon sign to wear that says “I didn’t vote for him.”