Oh, this should be good

This year's State of the Union Address ought to provide some interesting political theater., becasue this will be the first time that the Crawford Caligula has had to speak before a Congress led by the opposition party in BOTH houses.

As a living rebuke to whatever pablum he decides to toss out to the Christofascist Zombie Brigade about his opposition to federally-funded stem cell research on the grounds of "reverence for human life" will be Michael J. Fox, who will be in attendance as a guest of Rhode Island Rep. Jim Langevin.

And this year, the response will be given by none other than Fightin' Jim Webb, the Democratic Senator from Virginia, whose past as Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Navy will also serve as a living rebuke to the Chickenhawk-in-Chief.

It appears also that he is planning to blame the Democrats -- the very same Democrats who weren't even allowed to bring any legislation to the floor for debate under Republican rule -- for the profligate spending that has marked Republican control of Congress:

When he takes the House rostrum next week for the State of the Union address, President Bush will list among his goals a balanced federal budget, a shift for a president who has presided over record deficits while aggressively cutting taxes.

Politically, analysts say, the president is calling the bluff of Democrats, who won control of Congress in part by accusing Bush of reckless fiscal policies. While Bush now shares the Democrats' goal to erase the deficit by 2012, the politically perilous work of making that happen -- cutting spending or raising taxes -- falls to the Democratic-run Congress.

"The Democrats have assailed deficits under President Bush. The White House is telling Democrats to walk the walk," said Brian M. Riedl, a budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Budget experts and economists from across the political spectrum, including some who worked in the Bush White House, say that Bush is unlikely to offer real concessions toward a balanced budget in the plan he delivers to Congress next month.

This is breathtaking chutzpah, but it is not out of character for a man who has required other people to clean up his messes for his entire life. This is a president who has spent a half-trillion dollars in Iraq and demanded no accountability from the military contractors in whose pockets he and his Republican minions on Capitol Hill have stuffed wads of cash for nearly five years. This is a president who has aggressively cut taxes, with most of the benefit going towards his friends in industry, and asked for no cuts in anything other than programs that benefit the middle class. This is a president who has talked the talk of "sacrifice", but has demanded nothing of those most able to pay. And now he is going to stand up in front of Congress and the entire United States and say, "I broke it, but I am of the Bush Family, the royal family of America, and you serfs will have to clean up that mess I just made."

It's true that in the past, it has always fallen upon Democrats to clean up the economic messes Republicans leave from the profligate spending under Republican rule. But there has never before been a president who borrowed so hugely for such little benefit to the American people as a whole.

It's going to be strangely fitting to see this president, a relatively small man who is growing smaller by the day, as his head sinks further and further into his shoulders, flanked by the parental images of Nancy Pelosi and Dick Cheney as he delivers his speech. Because in the administration they have been allowed to operate for the last six years, they have been like a closely-bonded father and son while Mom is away visiting Grandma. They pile up dishes in the sink, they spill chip crumbs all over the floor, they blithely pee all over the toilet seat and the floor, and seem to not notice the squalor they are creating, instead assuming, and expecting, that Mom will clean it up.