In his State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, President Bush spoke of four people he believes are prime examples of what a true American patriot looks like. He spoke glowingly of former NBA star Dikembe Mutombo; Julie Aigner-Clark, founder of Baby Einstein; Weslie Autrey, the recent hero of the New York subway system; and, of course, a decorated marine, Tommy Rieman. Each of these people exhibited qualities the President found to be truly exemplary. A number of people, however, were cut from the original draft, for a variety reasons.

Carl Ristau lived a simple life as a carpenter in Freedom, Massachusetts, for the last forty years. But his true passion is painting. He has heroically been painting American Flags on canvasses he bought at a local mom-and-pop art store for over three decades now. He paints American flags and only American flags. He paints them in full bloom, with the wind billowing through the flag, and also hanging still, on the stillest American day. Occasionally, he will also paint an eagle standing on top of the flagpole. Or he has, once in a blue moon, stretched his artistic legs and painted Mount Rushmore in the background behind the flag. During the summer, he usually manages to knock out one or two baseball-themed flag paintings and at least one commemorating Independence Day, with fireworks exploding all around the flag. Additionally, he has painted a special American flag painting for every sitting President for the last twenty-five years, artfully mingling a semi-transparent President over the traditional flag. When President Bush finally received his in the mail this last year, the President called up Carl and asked him to come down to the White House for a beer and an afternoon chat. He liked chatting with the guy. Carl was sensible, smart, and patriotic, and the President liked what he was doing for this country. Unfortunately, during a routine background check, it turned out that Carl had not been paying taxes on all the paintings he sold. Worse yet, once the Justice Department got wind of the case, they charged him with copyright infringement. Apparently, Carl had been using the image of the American flag, a protected copyrighted image, for profit and that was against the law. Carl was recently sentenced to 42 years in jail for tax evasion and copyright infringement. Bush, however, kept the painting and sent Carl ten dollars as payment.

John G. Butterworth served two tours of duty in Iraq. He fought alongside the 101st Airborne Division in its initial strikes on Baghdad. In his second tour of duty, Butterworth walked the streets of the city, patrolling as a member of Task Force Baghdad. After returning to the United States, Butterworth started a small business in his hometown of Peoria, Illinois, selling individual body armor to soldiers overseas. The armor was designed and built by Butterworth, constructed out of raw materials that he found at his local Home Depot. Soldiers in Iraq spread the word using blogs and internal newsletters and eventually Butterworth had more sales than he could handle. He rented a small warehouse, where he hired a number of manual laborers he also found at Home Depot. He put them to work building the body armor and raised production by 4000%. By running his assembly line 24 hours a day with the help of these laborers, Butterworth managed to bring production up to demand. By the summer of 2006, Butterworth’s Armor For Freedom Inc. was worth over $5 million and was providing body armor for soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Chechnya. The company came to President Bush’s attention when a member of the State Department compiled a report on the body armor situation in Iraq. The President called up Butterworth personally and thanked him both for his service as a soldier and for stimulating the economy. After the President instructed his speechwriters to include Butterworth in the State of the Union, it was discovered that PBS was planning on airing a television program on the “home-brew” options soldiers turned to for armor while in the field. The program, however, insinuated that this made the State Department, the military, and the President himself look bad, implying that the United States, in all its wealth, could not armor its own soldiers. Butterworth was promptly dropped from the speech and charges of illegal interstate commerce have been brought up against him.

Hiro Nakamura came to the nation’s attention in late 2006, emerging as a classic example of an American hero with a number of staggering feats under his belt. While on the road in the Midwest, Nakamura came upon a major car crash. With his wits about him, Nakamura managed to pull DL Hawkins, DL’s son Micah, and another passenger to safety, right before the cars exploded in a ball of fire. While other heroic acts have been noted, the President was most impressed by Nakamura’s ability to slow time to a halt and teleport himself around the world. While initially including Nakamura in his speech, the President chose to cut this particular American hero when it was brought to his attention that Hiro Nakamura was actually Japanese and, additionally, a fictional character on a television show the President had been watching one late night with his dog Barney.