With the State of the Union speech fast approaching, it’s time to do a little review of the trail of broken promises from this Administration. ThinkProgress has put together a video of past SOTU speech excerpts and how little follow-through there has been on these issues by this Administration. The video is great, and well worth a watch. Kudos.

And about that medical savings reform that the Preznit will be talking about on the 31st during the SOTU? Well, his cronies in Congress have already given the health insurance industry their $22 billion dollar reward a little early. Oh yeah, backdoor dealing is a thing of the past in the new, improved, anti-corruption GOP…except when it isn’t.

That change was made in mid-December during private negotiations involving House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and the staffs of those committees as well as the House Energy and Commerce Committee. House and Senate Democrats were excluded from the meeting. The Senate gave final approval to the budget-cutting measure on Dec. 21, but the House must give it final consideration early next month.

Whew, all that public talk about cleaning things up in Washington amounts to a big pile of nothing, doesn’t it? Good thing those health insurance folks can make more money to pay the big time KStreet lobbyists to get them more money from the Republican Congress.

See how that works? It’s a sweet deal if you can afford it. Too bad the little guy gets left out of the loop and, instead, will be paying higher premiums to finance more lobbying of the GOP. Suckers.

If you think that this was a one time only thing, think again. This is how business is done in the GOP controlled Congress. Dead of night conferences, lobbyist-influenced inserts by bought and paid for Congressmen, with Democrats and public interest watchdog groups shut out of the process altogether. No sunshine, no oversight, no ethics. You wonder why there is a corruption scandal in the GOP right now, look no further. For shame.

Bringing ethics and moral uprightness back to Washington, my ass — this time its the American public getting screwed, not an intern, and the "religious right" isn’t spouting any moral outrage because they are in on the take with their publicly funded outreach programs. It’s a sweet bribe if you can get it, I suppose.

Oh, and just so we’re clear, the WH can stop pretending that Abramoff and the Preznit never met. Just this once, try being honest.

How bad are things with the WH when they lose Joe Lieberman? Seems the whole "we’re fully cooperating" lie finally got to be too much for Joementum. The Administration has been thwarting investigation into their Katgrina incompetence — how dare Congress want to do some actual oversight, silly elected officials. I mean, it’s not like people died they could have seen it coming they had done advance drills for just this sort of catastrophic situation they cut levee maintenance funding the Preznit and his cronies ought to be held responsible for their miserable failure or anything. Geeesh.

And this isn’t even a comprehensive list. Iraq, Afghanistan, foreign policy failures, budget cuts for programs that help people on the margins…it’s endless. The only area in which this Preznit has kept his word is the promises he made to the people who gave him campaign contributions and political support: those folks are being well taken care of by this Administration. Very well, indeed.

Oh yeah, I’m feeling oh so united now, baby. United with the rest of the little guys out there who got divided out of any consideration by a GOP which is more interested in enriching its friends and family and KStreet buddies. Shameful. Just plain shameful.

Harold Meyerson calls the Preznit incompetent today. I think he was just being nice — he left out corrupt, lacking compassion, power-hungry, craven and liar. But maybe that’s just me.

UPDATE: Outrage doesn’t even begin to describe my feelings at the moment. From Kevin Drum, via TBogg. Accountability, responsibility, and full cooperation, my ass.

Shorter Bush Administration: We run the country into the ground because we can.