The President is on television tonight. I've got the box on in the other room, but I can barely hear what's being said. No more than forty seconds of speech before at least ten seconds of applause. This is government? At least half the people in the room want him gone, and still they have to applaud.
Oh, goody. He just threatened Japan. Japan's been dumping steel in the U.S. in an effort to save their economy. The result has been devastating to the U.S. steel industry. Somehow "trade war" doesn't come to mind as a solution, but I bet everybody in the room was standing on that particular issue.
I think he's done now. This means that the Republican response to the State of the Union address can't be far behind. I wonder if they're going to pick on the impeachment thing, or if they'll take the high road. If they go after him, their core constituency will be happy, but everyone else will think they're scum. If they take the high road they haven't got much to talk about. Whether you like the guy or not, the country is doing pretty well these days. Perhaps the old cry for tax relief will work.
Tomorrow the numbers will come out. More Americans than there actually are in the world will now approve of Bill Clinton. One hundred and twelve percent of people polled will say that they want the Senate to drop the impeachment now and get on with America's business. Of course, they're only saying so because someone asked. If you don't ask, they won't tell. They don't care. People are busy, and the country is moving along.
When the House was finally getting around to voting it seemed like a number of people were contacting their representatives. When the vote comes in the Senate that'll probably happen once again. But I think just about everyone made up their minds a long time ago about the President, and no one is really listening to the on-going deliberations. We're just waiting for it to end.
The Republican response is on now. She's calling for tax reform (so far nothing about impeachment). She's telling a story about a constituent's wife being declared dead by the IRS. Seems the husband couldn't convince the IRS that she was alive, even with a doctor's note. I'm sorry: while bureaucracy is certainly part of the problem, I think most people are looking for lower taxes, or perhaps a new tax system entirely. Her anecdote is charming but off topic.
Now Steve Largent is on. As my friend Natolyn will tell you, I'm not a football fan (she got mad at me because I didn't know Atlanta had a football team). I don't know if he was a good football player, but I hope he's in the Congress because he's a good legislator, not just a face and a name people recognize.
Jean's got it right tonight: she's knitting and not listening to the television.
Did you see the moon tonight? I didn't notice it until I was driving home from work tonight, just coming over the Huguenot bridge. It's just a sliver of light. It's smiling.
listening: State of the Nation and response
reading: The Hobbit (Bumpy's Bedtime Book)
news: I finished converting the admissions video from QuickTime to RealVideo today. It's on the server, but it's not "official" so I can't link to it. This particular version is 300 KPBS, so you'd have to have a pretty thick pipe to view it anyway. I'm going to be heading back to the digital video suite to see if I can create 28.8, 56K and ISDN editions of the video without losing too much of the quality of the picture or sound.
© 1999 Kevin J.T. Creamer