Welcome to the Charles C.W. Cook podcast, episode 18, with extra nutrients.

This week's episode is being recorded from a balloon somewhere over Wuhan. It's cold.

The view is great.

From here, I can just about see some journalists

throwing large tarps over the Institute of Virology.

I've been trying to think what I should say about last Tuesday's State of the Union address.

And I really can't come up with anything more appropriate than that I hated it.

I hated it. I hated it.

I've seen others parse it and evaluate it

and make predictions off the back of it.

I've seen a great deal of sycophantic praise for Biden.

I've seen fact checks and apologies and what about. And that's all

fine. But the bottom line is that I hated it. I think it was a disgrace. I find it embarrassing that that is currently our politics.

This isn't a partisan thing. I was embarrassed by everyone. I was embarrassed by Biden,

who is a nasty, dishonest, demagogic old man,

and who, in his own way, is every bit the pathological liar

and unreconstructed narcissist that Donald Trump is.

I was embarrassed by the Republicans who could not help themselves but to shout at him.

I was embarrassed by the bipartisan celebration of fiscal irresponsibility that we got in the speech's most notable moment.

I was embarrassed by the press coverage that followed,

which somehow managed to be both hysterical and obsequious in equal measure.

I was embarrassed by Congress

...