CNN releases some pre-State-of-the-Union numbers.

They indicate that support for Bush — his policies specifically and his second term generally — hovers in the range normally associated with point-shaving athletes and people who leave their dogs in hot, closed cars during summer months.

“WASHINGTON (CNN) — A majority of Americans are more likely to vote for a candidate in November’s congressional elections who opposes President Bush, and 58 percent consider his second term a failure so far, according to a poll released Thursday.”

We frown on gloating here at VDB; it’s counter-productive, and it conveys a political attitude that can verge on the childish. But we make an exception — always and unfailingly — when desperate Bush numbers come hot off the press. And then . . . yes . . . we sing the theme from Sponge Bob Square Pants:

Who-o-o lives in a pineapple under the sea?
SpongeBob SquarePants!
Absorbant and yellow and porous is he!
SpongeBob SquarePants!

And as to that State of the Union, Mr. President: Bring it.