I didn't watch the State of the Union speech Tuesday evening. I'm dedicated to the cause of liberty, but enough is enough. I'm not a masochist.

Later that evening, I tuned into ESPN's SportsCenter show. In the opening headlines, the announcer said "In his State of the Union speech, President Bush tells professional sports to get rid of steroids."

Since ESPN's announcers use a lot of humor, I assumed this was a joke. Why would a President of the United States use valuable State-of-the-Union time to talk about sports?

I was wrong, of course. Later in the show, they ran a clip of President Bush saying:

So now the Emperor is dictating the rules of sport.

I guess that shouldn't be such a surprise. After all . . . 

So why wouldn't he assume he can tell the sports world how to operate?

What seems amazing is the loyalty of Republicans to Emperor George Bush — no matter how overbearing he becomes.

No matter what he says or does, Republicans will find excuses for him, support him, cover for him, betray their own principles for him.

Of course, it isn't really George Bush they're supporting. It's the Republican Party. No matter how bad he gets, they'll continue to tell themselves it would have been worse with a Democrat.

On the day some Republican is being led to the guillotine on a trumped-up charge of abetting terrorists, he'll probably be mumbling, "Thank God for George Bush. Al Gore would have shot my dog as well."

If a Republican admits he's not happy with the runaway growth of government today, he thinks the answer is to elect more conservative Republicans to Congress (since they're doing such a good job already).

Sorry, but that approach didn't work with Eisenhower. It didn't work with Nixon. Or Reagan. Or George H.W. Bush. And it certainly won't have any effect on George W. Bush — who couldn't care less about restraining government.

Three months ago they were telling us we should support Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger in California — that Schwarzenegger would rely on Tom McClintock to cut the California budget. Well, I haven't heard McClintock's name mentioned since election day. He must be hiding in Schwarzenegger's basement.

Yes, Al Gore would have been a bad President. And so will Howard Dean or John Kerry.

But that's not an excuse to give up your own integrity and your own self-respect — and vote for someone who's working against you..

If you support a politician (for whatever reason) who believes he has the right to run your life, you have no cause to complain when he starts running your life.

And by supporting people who believe they should run your life, you cannot expect anything to change — ever.

As I see it, you have two choices: vote Libertarian or don't vote at all. Neither choice will bring you liberty this year. And the odds against them bringing you liberty in your lifetime may be as much as 50 to 1.

But the odds against gaining liberty by supporting Republicans or Democrats must be more like 10,000,000,000,000 to 1.

Can you think of a single area of government in which George Bush hasn't already made things worse than Bill Clinton did?

Some Republicans try to fall back on national defense. They think Bill Clinton was a wimp in foreign policy — that he was less of a leader than George Bush because he killed fewer people than Bush has. Even those people should recognize that Clinton bombed Iraq steadily for eight solid years, that he fired missiles at the Sudan and Afghanistan, and that he invaded Haiti.

Of course, those were Democratic missiles. Bush is probably firing more lethal ones.

Oh yes, there is one area in which George Bush hasn't yet topped Bill Clinton.

Sex.

But give him time. He isn't going to let Bill Clinton outdo him at anything.

I fully expect one day to see George Bush on television saying, "I did not have group sex with those three interns."

So is there any difference between Bill Clinton and George Bush?

Yes, I believe there is.

George Bush is Bill Clinton on steroids.