S’cuse me if this sounds a little hyperbolic to you, but: a bravura SOTU performance by, hands down, the greatest President in American history.

I know, I know: the word ‘humble’ and the name ‘Trump’ sit uneasily in the same sentence. But read or listen to his State of the Union speeches. Trump proudly retails his achievements. But he also humbly affirms the reality that he is working for and that is much larger than any individual.

The State of the Union address this year was full of touching moments. For me, one of the most touching was the president calling out the great talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who just Monday announced to the world that he had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. The president first said that Rush would be receiving the nation’s highest civilian honor — the Presidential medal of Freedom; he then had his wife Melania present the honor on the spot, cinching the pendant around the teary commentator’s neck for all to see.

Donald Trump wasn’t a reality TV host for nothing. He understands drama. So not only did Rush get his Medal of Freedom, but a woman with two young children, whose husband was away in Afghanistan on his fourth deployment, suddenly, unexpectedly got her husband back. The Commander in Chief had ordered the solider returned from Afghanistan. At the agreed upon moment, he came striding down the aisle to embrace his wife and children. Ilhan Omar, who came to the event to represent ‘resistance’ against an ‘illegitimate’ president, just sat there.

Once again, the Democrats were falling over themselves to exhibit their rudeness. On one side of the chamber, people stood up and sat down more often than congregants at a Catholic Mass. Most of the Democrats, however, sat stonily in their seats, snickering or staring at the floor while others around them cheered. Rep. Ayanna Pressley issued a snarling tweet explaining why she would give the State of the Union Address a miss. So did Rep. Maxine Waters. So of course did Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They and many others proudly displayed their lack of common courtesy and rudimentary civil behavior in order to grandstand and wallow in unrequited feelings of hatred and unstoppable pettiness.

There was, of course, a surreal element to the proceedings. For the last several months, the president has been subject to farcical, wholly partisan impeachment proceedings, in outrageous violation of everything the Framers intended in outlining that awesome safeguard. Donald Trump did not utter the word impeachment during his long speech. Nor did he allude to his Lilliputian tormentors. Wednesday, February 5, 2020, is the day that the Senate votes to acquit the president. Nancy Pelosi said that, no matter what happens, the ‘stain’ of impeachment would always be attached to the name of Donald Trump, a malignant ‘asterisk’ declaring his essential failure. I think that she is right that the history books will feature an asterisk about impeachment. But I predict that it will call attention not to Donald Trump’s bad behavior but to the craven, nakedly partisan efforts of an embittered minority to overturn the results of the 2016 election and forestall the outcome of the 2020 election.

And it will be Pelosi and the Seven Dwarves themselves who will forever carry the indelible stain of their Shampeachment folly, not Trump.

One of (the) most difficult things to achieve is an accurate estimation of one’s age while living through it. The many claims of everyday life, to say nothing of the static of received opinion, makes an unclouded assessment exceedingly difficult. Just so, it is difficult for us, I think, to form a just estimation of Donald Trump. His style is often so foreign to our idea of what a president should be. But not always.  A couple of years ago, when President Trump gave his great speech on foreign policy and national identity in Warsaw, I conjectured that his model was Pericles of Athens. Some people made fun of me for that — ‘comparing Donald Trump to Pericles? Are you kidding me?’ In truth I did not so much compare Trump to Pericles as suggest that Thucydides had provided a model in his account of the Pericles’s Funeral Oration in the first year of the Peloponnesian War.

Thinking back on it now, however, I suspect that I was too stingy with my praise. In my view, Trump’s major speeches — and tonight’s was no exception — will go as among the most eloquent and important in the nation’s history, just as his stupendous, world-changing achievements will be hailed as the fulcrum upon which the nation began to turn its back on the agenda of dependency that has hobbled this country at least since LBJ’s malevolent ‘Great Society’ programs created a permanent underclass and a parasitic bureaucracy to nurture it and feed upon it.

The president’s speech tonight was nothing less than magnificent. Notwithstanding the gnat-like creatures that swarm about him, he has continued to accomplish great things for America. ‘This nation is our canvas,’ he said in his peroration, ‘and this country is our masterpiece. We look at tomorrow and see unlimited frontiers just waiting to be explored. Our brightest discoveries are not yet known. Our most thrilling stories are not yet told. Our grandest journeys are not yet made. The American Age, the American Epic, the American Adventure, has only just begun!’

Adam Schiff was unavailable for comment.

No matter; the pop-eyed, hydrocephalic, sniveling little pussy has never uttered a single syllable worth bothering to listen to anyway. His place in American history, along with his shameless, putrescent colleagues, is assured. It is not one any decent or honorable person would care to occupy.

As Kimball says above, the Limbaugh moment was probably the most poignant, the most moving of a night chock-full of them. Rush was clearly overwhelmed and gratified to be so honored. But Limbaugh’s time in the SOTU spotlight was about more than just him alone. Not to slight Rush in any way whatsoever, of course; as the single man most responsible for the rebirth of American conservatism, for his efforts on behalf of several worthy charitable organizations and the US military specifically, he has earned the highest of accolades many times over.

No, Rush’s hour of grace was bigger, more significant than merely that. Because the simple truth is, the MoF and other such awards and recognitions had been besmirched and sadly diminished by Trump’s vile predecessor, who much preferred to spend his time denigrating America and convincing the rest of us of the essential rightness of its deserved lapse into decay and despair. Who cares, really, about getting an award from a “leader” whose sole interest is in “managing the decline,” whose primary concern is not reversing but accelerating it? What pride can be taken from honors received from the dishonorable, from accolades bestowed by scoundrels, losers, and creeps? Just add patriotism, pride, and the restoration of their previous value to the ever-lengthening list of things Trump has Made Great Again.

For anyone who missed it, I simply must include Trump’s tribute to Limbaugh here:

I confess, I puddled up a little myself watching last night. It was but one of many remarkable moments from Trump’s SOTU. But alas, now we must address the other, uglier side of the coin, though: the disgusting, craven, childish behavior of the hateful brats in the Disloyal Opposition.

As a lead-in to that unpleasantness, another fine moment was this one:

President Donald Trump honored one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen at his State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

Charles McGee who is 100-years-old, flew more than 135 combat missions during World War II, attacking targets in Italy and helping support the rescue of 1,000 prisoners of war in Romania.

Mr Trump signed a bill promoting Charles McGee from Colonel to Brigadier General and earlier on Tuesday pinned the stars onto his shoulders during a private ceremony at the Oval Office in the White House. 

More:

Trump pointed to Iain Lanphier, a 13-year-old from Arizona studying at an aviation academy, as a potential recruit for the new Space Force.

“As Iain says, ‘most people look up at space, I want to look down on the world,’” Trump said as he gestured toward the eighth grader.

Sitting next to Lanphier was his great-grandfather, Charles McGee, one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen — the first group of African-American fighter pilots, who served in World War II.

Whereupon McGee, looking quite spiffy and squared-away in dress blues complete with full salad-bar, smiled at Trump and snapped off a sharp and proper salute to the CinC, bless his heart. Like the SOTU entire, it was heartwarming. Inspiring. Uplifting.

Incredibly, though, EVEN THIS the goddamnable Democrat-Socialist scum couldn’t bring themselves to applaud. Obviously, they would far rather indulge their own bitter, selfish rage than step back from their partisan game-playing to bestow a moment’s common decency upon a courageous, noble American veteran and his admirable young descendant. They owe—this entire nation owes—one hell of a lot more than a mere modicum of respect to such a one as McGee, more than the most piffling encouragement to a young man dreaming such heady dreams. But the despicable toe-rags couldn’t even trouble themselves to THAT pathetic extent.

Such a display of generosity and humility lies well beyond the pitiful reach of our Democrat-Socialist “leaders.” Francis says it:

To call their attitudes and behavior sour and spiteful is to give them very faint coloration. Every shot of the assembly shows the Democrats resolutely refusing even to smile at the many excellent developments of which President Trump could boast. The sight of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ripping up the copy of the speech, which the president is required by courtesy if not by law to give her, was the jewel in their sour-mouthed, sour-faced crown. It was the plainest of demonstrations that Trump’s success — America’s success — is anathema to them.

Admitting to error is no one’s favorite pastime. It’s particularly galling to politicians. The Democrats have many errors – if errors they were in truth – to answer for. Having Donald Trump, whom they revile personally as well as ideologically, enumerate them to their faces was the bitterest medicine a politician can be fed.

But it was time the Democrats were compelled to face their own record. Not that they’d ever admit that those failures were actually theirs, of course. It was all “Republican obstructionism” or “lack of cooperation from the private sector.” And the public was entitled to see the refutation of it in living color.

As I was thumbing around the radio dial this morning, I tuned into the local talk station for a sec, where I heard the show’s host (no idea who that is; the car radio is usually welded to the local classical-music outlet, but they were playing some excruciating modern Mondo-Weirdo crapola at the time, which will send me diving for the switcher every time) wonder how “any reasonable person could POSSIBLY vote for a Democrat” after last night’s disgraceful tantrum. The thing he’s missing is this: no REASONABLE person would.

By all rights, Trump’s lustrous SOTU triumph should have hammered the final nail into the Demonrat’s coffin, finishing them off as a national Party for all time. It’s stupefying to realize that it won’t; there are still those blighted urban Red zones in play, and the delusional or credulous or just plain stupid voters will low like the witless cattle they are and lumber on off to vote for whatever dog’s breakfast of a candidate the D-S’s manage to puke up for 2020. Assuming they can figure out how to correctly rig a caucus or primary in time to nominate one, which after their Iowa debacle might be doubtful.

Unless he’s captured on video strangling puppies and setting kittens afire on the White House steps before election day, Trump will win a crushing reelection victory over them. But sooner or later, one way or another, they’ll be back. It’s a damned shame, and speaks quite poorly of a significant portion of the American electorate. But…well, there it is.

Update! Full text and video of Trump’s brilliant speech is up here.