A couple thoughts about the State of the Union Address: Glad to see so many Democrats clapping when Bush announced that the PATRIOT Act was set to expire next year and before he had called for it to be renewed. Nice to see glimmers of resistance from the Dems - maybe this time they'll vote against the damn thing. Have to say I'm not quite sure what Bush meant by "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities" - but I guess that's the idea. Were the Iraqis hosting academic conferences about WMD? If Bush believes that alluding to a constitutional marriage denying homosexual couples the right to marriage without explicitly calling for it with mollify both the "religious right" and the "soccer moms," he's got another think coming. Giving gay couples the same legal protections as heterosexual ones? Not, contrary to conservative dogma, "special rights." Giving religious groups a free pass to ignore anti-discrimination law and still receive federal funding on account of being religious? There are your special rights. Howard Dean's primal scream Monday night I think we can agree didn't make him new friends. But how many people actually found the Daschle-Pelosi fireside chat to be a more effective response to a speech that was a paen to the radical right? The Center for American Progress offers some line-by-line parshanut (commentary).