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Here's an opening line we're unlikely to hear when the President addresses a joint session of Congress on Monday night.

Madame Speaker, Vice President Cheney, members of Congress, distinguished guests, fellow citizens: Our peace and prosperity have both been squandered by the foreign and domestic policies I've advocated since taking office seven years ago. Most especially, I regret having rejected the Kyoto climate treaty and having missed the opportunity to blaze a bright path to the new energy economy the world so desperately needs. And so tonight I want to lay out a new strategy for restoring America's badly damaged standing in the world.

Let's remember it was on March 19, 2003 when America's commander in chief dishonestly led the country to a war in Iraq. Still at war almost five years later, America is now leading the way to global economic decline, thanks to oil at $100 a barrel and the fundamental dishonesty underlying the sub-prime lending debacle.

But let's not count on the bare naked truth to be uttered by the man most responsible for it, when in fulfillment of Constitutional duty, he provides the nation with his last and final accounting of the state of the union. He has never been known for an ability to recognize his mistakes, nor to tolerate others who do.

Instead we'll see on prime time the craft of speech-writing turned to most mendacious use; with the most outrageous rhetorical excesses punctuated by partisan eruptions of applause; and the whole spectacle analyzed ad nauseam with punditry, pandering and protestation. If you had to bet, it's far more likely we'll hear this opening line from the 2002 address, recycled.

As we gather tonight, our nation is at war, our economy is in recession, and the civilized world faces unprecedented dangers. Yet the state of our Union has never been stronger. (Applause.)

His father was chased from office by an opponent who understood the score then -- that it was the economy, stupid. Times have changed.

Now, it's the climate, stupid.