Goodness from The Economist

Obama's secret vice:

But as habits go, Mr Obama's smoking is less annoying than John Kerry's poetry-writing and less odd than George Bush's obsessive brush-clearing.

A falling star:

Ms Rice was given a chance to redeem her reputation when she was made secretary of state in the second Bush term. Mr Bush signalled that he wanted a different foreign-policy approach from his first, which Mr Armitage once characterised as “Look, fucker, you do what we want.”

SOTU (a little late)

• If the Capitol is destroyed by some catastrophe Attorney General Gonzales would be the man in charge? Yikes.
  
• Who's the big guy with the "God is Good" badge greeting everyone? Why only "Good" and not "Great"? Why a badge?
  
• Ahh, that's the stuff: "nu-clu-lar".
  
• Dikembe Mutombo?! Baby Einstein?!
  
• Right back at you NYC Subway guy.
  
• Ahh, that's more of the stuff: "State of the Union is strong".