At the Karloff Café...

... Boris Karloff seems strangely familiar.

(Via Michael Stipe's Tumblr, via this NYT article about Tumblr.)

ADDED: For reference:

Here's where I blog everything about the State of the Union address that doesn't involve the text.

I've already blogged the text. That's done! No more fretting over typing out what the Prez is saying in real time. Been there. Done that. This post is for everything else. What are they wearing? Who's falling asleep? What was that funny look? Where did he stumble over the text? All style and no substance, except to the extent that style is substance, baby.

UPDATE: Thanks for keeping this going in the comments. I don't have much to say about the visuals. The House fixtures looked surprisingly shabby on HDtv. Obama spoke slowly, had some gray hair, and made stabbing gestures with the pinched-together fingers of his left had. The mixing of the Democrats and Republicans in the audience really did — as critics warned — have the effect of making it look as though everyone supported him, but perhaps the demonstrations of support were a bit more toned down than they would have been if the parties had kept separated.

UPDATE 2: Instapundit has a grim screen capture. Was O's suit that blue?!

AND: As for that look, I think that's the Boris Karloff look.

CONFESSION: I slept through parts of it.

Is this a fair description of the way Obama looked at the summit?

I've put some effort into defending Rush Limbaugh this week, so I want to balance that with some criticism. I didn't watch the summit yesterday. I had other demands on my attention. I don't watch Daytime TV. I could have watched the rerun at night, and I can still watch some clips. I just didn't and haven't. But I did listen to the podcast of some of Rush's show yesterday. At one point, he was running the audio of the summit and commenting in real time. He had some descriptions of how Obama looked, and it had me crying out loud that it was over-the-top:

Obama was sitting there and his lips were pursed. There as tight as he could be. He had one finger over his mouth and he was shooting Boris Karloff eyes.

So, something like this?

Or this?

More Rush:

He just looked like, "How dare you do this! This is not going the way I had it planned. I'm the one being embarrassed here! They're the ones are supposed to be made to look like a bunch of mean-spirited extremists, and now they're throwing my own words and my own plan right back at me and they don't even know how to respond to this." So he had to come over some help. Some aide had to come over and give him some advice on how to respond like he was a witness in front of a congressional committee, like a mob guy and his lawyer whispering. "Psst, pss, pss, pss."

There was utter panic.

Utter panic? Really?