Of course, the most offensive aspect of the SOTU, is the media’s uninformed coverage.

What about President Obama? His campaign has represented that he has only been married once, but there are photos of the President from 1980 wearing a ring on the ring finger of left hand where he now wears his wedding band. I’m not aware of any official published explanation of that ring.

Perhaps, like his father, he has a “traditional” wife in Kenya. Who knows, the news media won’t ask.

 On November 11, he spent at least several minutes re enforcing the common misperception of Social Security.

 Let’s get this straight; all money paid into Social Security is simply tax revenue for the Federal government. It doesn’t go into a special Social Security fund, and it certainly does not go into an account with your name on it. What you pay in today goes into buying new Stimulus Plan road work signs tomorrow. When it comes time for you to collect Social Security, you’ll be taking right it out of the pockets of your kids and grandkids like everyone else.

Yes, there is a Social Security Trust Fund and yes it doesn’t have any “money” in it. It would be criminally irresponsible of the Trustee if it did. What the Trust Fund contains is the safest investment in the world US bonds.  The Trust Fund was established in 1937 or so to handle the excess receipts. It’s not a trust fund of your receipts to be paid out when you retire. That’s Al Gore’s “Lockbox”.

So on the 11^th, Hannity was yammering away about the Trust Fund being empty, and getting back “your money” that you paid into Social Security. He really couldn’t have sounded less informed. He needs to talk to Rick Perry.

I’m glad he has used the access to experts afforded to Post staffers to learn:

 “To remove carbon from the atmosphere, we could bury wood and agricultural waste…”.

 This is called land filling, it’s where most trash goes.

I’m not an expert, but perhaps he could use the vast resources at the Post to learn if paper is made from wood. (And paper products, too?) Next, find another expert to learn if most paper is made from 1000 year old redwoods or 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th generation trees grown on tree farms. (Yes, I am aware that the Post does buy its paper from unsustainably managed virgin tropical and boreal forests, but most paper is more locally produced). Then, find another expert to explain about the energy inputs (all of the inputs) required to recycle paper. Another expert will be needed to explain land fill capacity. (Hint: landfills aren’t forever, Hint 2: What’s with all that space in “flyover country”? ) Finally, find yet one more expert to put it all together.

Here are some potential outcomes from the final expert’s analysis.

1. Recommends that landfills be re-named “carbon capture facilities”.
2. Tells you that if you’re the sort of person who believes a trace gas like carbon dioxide is in any way a significant climate driver, you should stop recycling paper and wood based products.
3. Mr. Milbank may learn that a large portion of the trash in the DC area is burned, so stopping paper recycling would have fewer benefits there.

Mr. Milbank will need to be careful to ask only experts. If one does this oneself, one may stumble on to sites like epa.gov, where information can be misleading and contrary evidence is omitted. Make sure to ask the right experts though. Don’t ask the ones who made predictions about the swine flu. Or hurricane activity. Or Arctic ice extent. Or the ARRA keeping employment under 8%. Or President Obama’s health care reform reducing premiums 

1. None of the bullet points illustrating glaring errors were material to cleaning up oil. Why was this considered news?

2. Who are the Obama Administration officials that approved this plan?

3. Why was the plan approved if the journalists at AP could find so many glaring errors?

I guess I have a fourth question too. What has happen to journalism these days?

In the past I would have thought Mr. Axelrod’s repeated references to Steven Chu and his Nobel Prize for physics was intentionally misleading. The assumption being that Mr. Axelrod assumes that most of the audience would have no idea how specialized Mr. Chu’s experience is ,and how specialized is the work in the Gulf. Without disparaging Mr. Chu, he has little to contribute to the solution.  I know this, and you, the reader know it, but Mr. Axelrod has absolutely no idea. One man in a white lab coat is the same as another, to hacks like Mr. Axelrod and fat ignorant bigots like Mr Matthews.

Mr. Matthews and Mr. Axelrod are so far out to sea on this issue, they might as well be caught in the current and sailing past the Chinese oil rigs off the coast of Cuba and Florida.

An easy one: Pledging to fund his campaign with only public funding then abandoning the pledge as soon as it became less financially lucrative.

I couldn’t bring myself to actually watch it, or read the transcript, but I’m pretty sure at one point (of oh so many, I’m sure – It’s Uncle Joe, after all.) he was trying to make the case that it was right for the UnderWear Bomber to be read his Miranda Rights so he could be tried in a civil court. Did he Uncle Joe also go ahead and declare him guilty before the trial starts, like he (and most of the Adminstration) has with KSM?