REVIEW OF THE STATE OF THE UNION
Adding Some Meat to Junto Boyz

It's about 1AM Friday. Today (Thursday), I didn't get a chance to blog or post a lot of things I wanted to because of work and other things going on in my life, so here is my late night flood of posts. There will be links to interesting news and stories and hopefully not so untimely. Some people have been wondering why I don't write more commentary, so starting next week I'll try to put some more meat to the blog. I still like to share news and links on various things I come across, so I am glad and appreciate the few thousand of you that visit my blog regularly get some value out of this site and hopefully I'll add more value as I move forward.

Anyway, here's a roundup of reviews of President Bush's SOTU address:

Power Line's live blogging view is here.

Oxblog's live blogging is here.

Roger Simon: "As anyone who pays the slightest attention to this blog knows, I am a supporter of gay marriage, so I groaned when Bush brought up "that amendment" again. But otherwise, I have to say the speech was great, especially the ending. The vision of those two women embracing each other -- Mrs. Norwood (the mother of the Marine killed in Fallujah) and the Iraqi woman whose father was murdered by Saddam is something that I will never forget. I started sobbing. It made me proud to be an American and to have stood on the right side of history. Like him or not, George Bush has done something never before done in human history by anyone I can think of -- bring democracy to a faraway country that didn't have it by force of his own will (because there's no way this would have happened had he not been elected). No one, not even Roosevelt, can say as much."

Chris Nolan from the left: "After last night's State of the Union Speech, it's pretty clear to me that Democrats are in a lot deeper trouble than the party realizes.

Because for much of his speech, George Bush was talking to me, a single woman living in San Francisco. It was his usual campaign laundry list, not that different from what was trotted out at the Republican Convention, tagging the bases for his anti-abortion supporters, the folks who want conservative judges and, finally, waving the flag. But I was paying attention."

And then of course the wackies from the left at the DailyKos: Who was the Iraqi Woman in the balcony?... (From the diaries -- kos. This cursory investigation demands a deeper look into Ms. Sofia Taleb Al Souhail. Held up as a shining example of why we've spent $200 billion and wasted 1,500 lives and counting, it looks upon first glance that she doesn't live in Iraq, has been affiliated with right-wing organizations, her father was killed in Lebanon while planning a coup against Saddam, and her family claims the US was complicit in his assassination.)

I am always interested in finding out who the people are that are chosen to sit with in the "good seats" at the State of The Union.

Especially after last year, when Chalabi was sitting in the seat. You often wonder who these people are.

So as I'm watching the woman hold up a shaky "peace" sign, finger stained in purple, you are wonder. "Did they fly her in? Wow, that's some crazy symbolism."

So I decided to look around.