If Washington is the Hollywood for ugly people, Monday's State of the Union address would have been the final chance for an aging George Bush to get his place on the Walk of Fame.
Unfortunately, like much of his presidency, he failed miserably.
We had excitedly anticipated at least a little of the infamous "axis of evil" cowboy bravado Bush gave us in 2002, but we were sadly - and yet not surprisingly - disappointed.
Instead of using his prime-time appearance to speed up the erosion of American diplomacy like we expected from years past, our lame-duck president chose to focus on the state of the slowing - oh, wait, make that "uncertain" - economy and how to stimulate an already hemorrhaging business climate.
His push for a $150 billion economic stimulus package will surely face tough opposition in the Senate, but, hey, at least he tried.
The stay-the-course leader naturally suggested that the troop surge in Iraq is working and that the enemy - whoever that may be at this point - will be defeated. Victory is in sight, just as it has been for the past five years.
And it was more of the same from there. Reform for laws governing federal surveillance, permanent extensions of his tax cuts, and free-trade agreements with Colombia, South Korea and Panama were key points of his address.
As the speech continued, the only way we could stop feelings of depression was to remind ourselves that the primaries were only hours away and that next year a very different speaker would be on our screen.
