Big Lie Alert: Untruths to Be on the Lookout for During the SOTU

Mr. President, once again you will no doubt try to paint the state of the union in the rosiest light possible tonight. But can you please spare us the out-and-out lying? It's offensive, demeaning, and really out of synch with America's newfound big-time crush on the truth.

So do us all a favor and don't tell us the following:

Don't tell us that democracy in Iraq will inevitably lead to peace over there and make us safer over here. So far, the elections haven't stopped Iraq from moving closer to civil war -- indeed, the disparate factions have grown more bellicose and the number of daily attacks is on the rise. We're all for democracy, but you've got to stop selling it as a panacea. Yes, we should champion peoples' right to vote -- but we have to realize that sometimes those people will want to vote for Hamas and Hezbollah and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and Iraqi clerics friendly with Iran. And democracy in Iraq doesn't seem to have shifted Osama Bin Laden's murderous focus away from our shores.

Don't tell us that the economy is humming along. Yes, the GDP grew 3.5 percent in 2005 (though it was only up 1.1 percent in the last quarter). And, yes, productivity is up. But median wages fell, our trade deficit is over $760 billion (80 percent higher than when you took office), inflation is at 3.4 percent, the highest it's been in half-a-decade, and the gap between the Two Nations is wider than ever. Thirty-seven million Americans live in poverty (4.1 million more than in 2001), 45.5 million don't have health insurance, and one in five American children live is households that can barely afford food. Not exactly figures to crow about.

Don't tell us that you approved the NSA domestic spying program because it was necessary to keep us safe. Tell us why you stubbornly and provocatively refused to submit to a warrant process that already allowed for immediate wiretaps and why, when given the chance in 2002 to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to make it even easier to obtain those warrants, your Justice Department argued against it. And while you're at it, please, at long last, address the real questions about your so-called "terrorist surveillance program": Exactly who is being targeted? How do you decide who to bug? How many Americans have been spied on? And why have you claimed there is congressional oversight of the program when this is clearly not the case?

Don't tell us -- yet again -- about how committed you are to developing alternative sources of energy. Don't insult us by waxing lyrical about ethanol and hybrid cars and other nonoil sources of fuel. Please. It's the same song-and-dance we heard during your 2003 State of the Union when you promised "a new national commitment" to hydrogen technology that would "make our air significantly cleaner, and our country much less dependent on foreign sources of energy." And we saw where that led us: skyrocketing gas prices, record oil company profits, and yet another push to drill in ANWR.