Having enjoyed the luminous commentary of the "FOX & Friends" anchors during the morning's live broadcast of the Oscar nominations ("What is a 'Babel'?"), I boldly asserted my desire last night to watch the State of the Union Address on the nation's most distrusted name in news. Shank flipped to channel 42 and the garish assault of red, white, blue, crimson, cerulean, cherry and azure digital on-screen graphics put me at a patriotic ease. This was going to be a kick-ass speech!

Of course, the gods had something else in store for us. As Shank fumbled with her remote to raise the volume to an appropriately ear-shattering level (How else can one enjoy a news station on which neoconservative talkshow hosts yell at their guests to "SHUT UP!"), the television momentarily flipped to none other than "America's Funniest Home Videos," where a dog was rolling around on a patch of grass to the sound of a hysterically (and understandably!) laughing audience. Cut immediately to a cat sticking its head in a Mary Jane shoe - again, to the cry of uproarious laughter. Oh man, domestic pets sure are hilarious! State of the Union, what?

And so it was with incredible resolve that Shank wrestled the remote from America's most hypnotically low-brow home videos and stayed the course, switching back to the dignified reserve of the House Chamber. Although, really, it was just more of the same old dumb pet tricks; the only thing missing was the laugh track.