Groundhog's Day, 2005

Pity poor Punxatawney Phil. Because of America's need to make a "holiday" out of absolutely everything, we drag this poor creature out of his nice warm cage once a year before dawn, hold him up before hundreds of television cameras, and declare that there will be six more weeks of winter, because Phil has seen his shadow (with all those TV lights, how could he not see his shadow?). It could be as dark and overcast as you can imagine, but every year Phil manages to see his shadow, and six more weeks of winter lie ahead of us.

Reality check: It's February 2nd, folks. There are six weeks of winter left, no matter what Phil says. And exactly where is PETA in all of this?

All of this points to the fantasy involved in the (oh, so charming) tradition of Groudhog's Day, a fantasy that suggests that if we believe in something strongly enough, we can make it so. And there's an object lesson in this tradition, one that occurs to me in the hours before the President's State of the Union address to Congress.

The President will poke his head out of his hole in the ground tonight and even with all of those television lights hitting him from every possible angle in the packed House chamber, he will not see his shadow. The long darkness, I predict he will tell us, is over.

The State of the Union is spring-like in its freshness and promise. Everything is new and beautiful. Values blossom. Freedom bursts from the very earth like poppies on the free and democratic Afghan hillsides. Democracy is reborn--a resurrection, if you will--in Iraq.

Newness is the theme, and growth. Oh, Growth, growth, growth! How, for instance, our economy is growing! How our schools are becoming hothouses of budding scholars!

To be sure, there is some spring clean-up to be done around the yard, some fertilizing and some weeding. That flower which we know as Social Security? A noxious weed. The fertilizer? Privatization! Oh, excuse me--personalization! Weeds are limits to growth, and must be eradicated. Ignore the fact that weeds have a natural function in every ecosystem--that kind of thinking is for the elitist liberal intelligentsia.

I predict a painting so pretty of our national garden that many Americans will find it hard to resist. There is only one problem: the President casts a very distinct, and a very dark shadow. There are six more weeks (or four more years) of winter.

Is our garden really healthier than it was four years ago? More Americans think not than so. Are we really sowing the seeds of Christian values (begging the question of whether that's even our role in the world)? Or are the seeds we sow seeds of materialism, consumption and global capitalism? Liberty, Freedom, Democracy? Freedom on the March? Well, that will be the President's story in a nutshell.

From where I sit, here in the reality-based community, it looks rather different. But Punxatawney George will tell us that Spring, like Freedom, is on the March.

If you watch the State of the Union tonight, listen--and watch--carefully. Think about the claims the President makes about "progress." Think about claims he has made in past State of the Union addresses. And think about the realities. The President will be casting a very distinct and imposing shadow. And most of America will be sitting IN THE DARK.