Whew! That Was A Close One.

Here at IM Central we take the blogger pledge seriously. We keep our keyboard free of Cheetos crumbs, always wear fresh pajamas, and never, ever, under any circumstances attempt to do--and pardon our language here--journalism. The very mention of the word sends a deep winter chill through our bones.

We share that little tidbit so that you can relate to our dilemma. Yesterday, as we were searching through the internet for drinking games to go with the president's State of the Union speech (and where better to look than the blogger formally known as Wonkette) we ran across a story about the Republican's reaction to the POTUS' SOTUS.

On first glance, we saw that it was filled with the usual toadification we have come to expect from the press...er...from the members of the president's own party. Iraq is great; Social Security is in the tank; Gays are bad; Oil is good (who needs Elk anyway); Our president is a manly man who could probably whip the Governator in a one on one jello wrestling match. Oh wait, that was Jenna and Ariana Huffington.

Well, this didn't raise many eyebrows in the marbled halls, although the mention of the first gulper did raise our glasses as we have a standing policy of hoisting one every time we hear her name. As refills were going around, one of the late comers to the meeting (and thus less, shall we say, lubricated) noticed that the story about the Republican reaction to the president's speech had been written several hours before the speech itself! The toadies were toadifying before the toadmaster had croaked his first croak.

This was very odd. Someone needs to know about this. But that would come perilously close to--and excuse our language here--reporting. You see our dilemma. One the one had we had discovered a flagrant disregard for openness and honesty, on the other, well there's that whole Cheetos thing.

What to do? What to do? Luckily the less lubricated member of our speech watching delegation came to our rescue by suggesting that the Republicans were phoning in their responses for the same reason we were stocking the bar...so they could engage in the great tradition of political drinking games while the president bloviated and not have to worry about saying something stupid to the press afterward because they were drunk.

Of course. Who says our legislative representatives aren't forward looking? A toast gentlemen...