The 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. The From here I can just about see some journalists throwing large tarps over the Institute of Vyrology.

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'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

un-reconstructed 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, which has let this charade go on for too long. And so after 45 minutes I turned it off.

Now I was of course primed to hated because I don't think that the state of the union should exist in its current form.

The Constitution does not mandate this.

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