TVSquad

Here are the weekly cable ratings, by number of viewers.

Now this is a varied ratings list. Sure, we have Monday Night RAW in there just like every week, but thrown into the mix are politics (the Democratic Debate from CA, the State of the Union and analysis), Law and Order, a movie on Disney, an episode of Monk, and not one but two - two! - episodes of Anderson Cooper 360. The episodes were helped by the fact that they followed the Democratic Debate - one is from 9:52 p.m. on Thursday and the other from 10 p.m. the same night. Eight minutes later. Crazy ratings.

1. Democratic Debate (CNN)

Jon started off by pointing out that the other night's guest, Phil Simms, called him "Tom" at the end of their interview. I could have sworn he called him "Josh", but I thought I was just hearing things. I suggest that Jon relieve the cutting pain of having an idol screw up one's name by convincing himself that Simms was just so floored to be in his presence, he got nervous. Instant restoration of self-esteem!

President Bush delivered his final State of the Union address the other night. He encouraged the nation to do stuff and promised to do some other stuff and then talked about some other, other stuff. Anyway, we're strong. I swear I actually shuddered a little bit when Cheney smiled. That damn inverted scowl makes me feel cold deep in the pit of my soul. I would also like to point out that, for some reason, Jon's Bush impression has been slipping into weirdly hilarious zones lately. He suddenly turned into a Mr. T/George Jefferson hybrid during the Kyoto Protocol joke.

Veronica Mars (9PM, The CW)
It's State of the Union night (see below), which is usually a television wasteland. For those of us who don't care to watch an hour of meaningless babble, 'Veronica' comes to the rescue. Last we saw the perky detective, she caught the campus rapist and broke up with boyfriend Logan (why, I still can't figure out). Now, she and Papa Mars are on the case of the dead dean.