A Guide to the Hack-in-Chief’s mumblings and bumblings and standard-issue statist fluff: Bruce McQuain’s Translating the SOTU:

Our free enterprise system is what drives innovation. But because it’s not always profitable for companies to invest in basic research, throughout history our government has provided cutting-edge scientists and inventors with the support that they need. That’s what planted the seeds for the Internet. That’s what helped make possible things like computer chips and GPS.

Translation: Please disregard the fact that I’m contradicting myself. Please understand that the first few sentences are only something to be used to justify further government spending. And here it is:

This is our generation’s Sputnik moment. Two years ago, I said that we needed to reach a level of research and development we haven’t seen since the height of the Space Race. In a few weeks, I will be sending a budget to Congress that helps us meet that goal. We’ll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology – an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people.”

Translation: I plan to call new spending “investment” so we can pretend it isn’t just more of the same. And if I couch it in high sounding rhetoric about research and development and use scare terms like “Sputnik moment”, it’s sure to make it all see to be a net “good thing”.

I remain insulted by the media whores who insist, even at this late date, that this fellow is some kind of wondrous-to-behold rhetorician. I remain gobsmacked by the number of my fellow citizens who see anything more than a Chicago Machine grifter grabbing what he can, while he can. I remain, in short, a curmudgeonly, cynical old fart.