USA TODAY's State Of The Union Forecast In Plain English

I thought it might be fun to translate a few paragraphs from today's USA TODAY into plain English.

Bush's State of the Union speech aiming to shift focus to domestic issues

WASHINGTON — President Bush will try to change the subject from Iraq to domestic issues tonight as he delivers his State of the Union address before a Democratic-controlled Congress for the first time in his presidency.

He can't afford to spend much time on foreign policy since so many Americans now understand the scale of the disaster it has inflicted. So instead he's gonna talk about the disasters closer to home.

Broadly, the speech before a joint session of Congress will highlight flexibility in education standards, alternatives to oil as a way to reduce "greenhouse gases" and new tax breaks for health insurance.

He can tell any bald-face lie he likes about the USA suddenly fighting climate change, but I won't believe a word of it. And unless I'm much mistaken he's also gonna tell us lies about how he plans to rob public education and swindle us on health insurance.

Guess what? He thinks we're stupid!!

And guess what? We are!!

But we're getting smarter all the time.

With his job approval rating hovering in the mid-30% range, Bush's overall agenda for the speech is twofold: present himself to the public as a leader with a sincere desire to work across party lines on practical solutions, and place pressure onto Democratic leaders to either go along or offer alternatives.

Would his sincere desire to work across party lines be reflected in the "Surge"? Do they think we can't remember past last week?

Besides which, Democrats have been going along and offering alternatives for six years. He's dismissed every single alternative as unworthy of serious consideration. Lately he's been saying nobody has ever offered any alternatives. What a sham!

Of course, what he really means is: "Nobody has offered any alternatives that are completely acceptable to the people who are really in charge here."

And how many of us are smart enough to notice that?

I don't know the exact number but I can see it getting bigger every day.

Thanks to you, it's spreading.