Mid-Week Open Thread: State of the Union Thoughts?
I’m going to have to split it up, but I’m nearing completion of what appears to be a 2500 word essay on what I thought about President Obama’s State of the Union address… I may just dump the whole thing on you poor souls, then go back and break it up into posts about the major points made.
But while you all assuredly can’t wait for that (not), lets hear what you thought about the State of the Union, and anything else going on this week that you feel like talking about.
Take it away…
About Solomon Kleinsmith
I started this site in the summer of 2010, really just as a hobby at first. But I'm pretty ambitious, and between being able to recruit some great bloggers to join the team here, putting a ton of work into the site and attracting a lot of traffic through Twitter, we've grown very fast for a young blog with next to no budget.
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When I watch the SOTU, a tend to do active editing and sorting of various ideas. Every President tosses out a fair number of items that relate to things near and dear to his team, but are not even remotely viable at the time of the speech. I always disregard those.
Obama did a good job for himself of setting the framing for his re-election campaign. In particular, the issue of extending the income tax break for the top bracket. MO this will be a big losing issue for the GOP.
Obama also included a number of ideas that he blatantly poached from the GOP, which I am sure frosts the GOP for strategic reasons. Both Boehner and Cantor appeared to me to be unhappily surprised by some of these, as though they were unsuccessfully trying to come up with a parry.
The emergence of these ideas on Obama’s wish list suggests to me he’s prepared to get re-elected to face a GOP majority in both chambers of congress.
Mitch Daniels appeared to me to be the weakest response deliveryman the GOP has chosen in years: pale, unvigorous, flat, pessimistic, strongly reminiscent of the stereotypical milquetoast conservative. All that was missing was the bowtie and the domineering mother.
Cranky, some thoughts.
1. The GOP is dead on the issue of fair taxation of the wealthy and Mitt Romney is literally the poster child for this issue.
2. I don’t think the GOP will have very strong majorities in both chambers, and possibly not one at all in the House if Newt Gingrich is the nominee. And you can bet that if they do, Democrats will utilize the filibuster to prevent them from sending poison-pill legislation to Obama’s desk.
3. Daniel’s response was lame, but not anywhere as bad as Bobby Jindal’s from two years ago, which basically tarnished his higher office prospects. But yes, milquetoast conservative is right. I did appreciate the deliciously Orwellian “we want a country of haves and soon-to-haves”. Get it, you’re not poor, you’re soon-to-be-not-poor!
We have heard this before, literally:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDDRiGIUYQo
Best part of the Speech, Republican Jeff Flake standing up with the Democrats when they stood to clap…why did he do this? He was standing beside Gabby Giffords and helping her to stand. It was probably the only display of the entire affair on anyone’s part where basic humanity overcame partisanship.
Oh I also want to add it wasn’t a one time thing, he stood up each time Gifford’s wanted to stand up with the other democrats, helping her to rise and return to her seat in support of “the other side” when he normally would have remained seated in support of his. He was a real Class Act.
Another item that makes you go WTF?
The Department of Education has acknowledged using flawed data in a study on the impact of race on student loan repayment rates, having omitted black students from its calculation.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/01/25/education-department-admits-flawed-data-gainful-employment-analysis#ixzz1kYXTevlO
How the hell do you omit something like that?
Another WTF? but this one relates to the state of the union adress.
http://broadsidebooks.net/2012/01/25/buffett-and-his-secretary-cant-get-their-story-straight-on-taxes/
Sol – While you are editing your SOTU opus, you might take a minute and fix the misspelling of “moderate” in you site banner. Unless you really are spearheading the moderaate groundswell.
I’m rebranding the movement man!
Nah, I saw that earlier… just had my head in code trying to figure out how to get the other sidebar to display on post pages, among other things.
or spearheadding
I was waiting to see if he was going to catch that one himself.
I should have a secret contest and change it to spearfishing, and see who comments about it first…
I like it. Spearfishing for Centrist Grandfalloonfish and hunting the mythical moderate sasquatch is a hobby of mine.
I’m a bit short for a sasquatch, but some of my friends might say I’m hairy enough, haha, and I’m definitely a centrist.
HUNGER GAMES TIME!
Another Partisan fail, but not surprising coming from Daily Kos
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/27/1058961/-Cheers-and-Jeers:-Rum-and-Coke-FRIDAY!?via=blog_1
According to their “Who won the week poll” the winner is at least as of now:
“President Obama, for his State of the Union address and for giving AZ Gov. Jan Brewer a lesson in good manners”
Of course what that really means is the President getting upset because the Governor was not flattering to him in her book.
What options did not win in the poll, well here is one:
“SEAL Team 6, for rescuing the American and Danish humanitarian aid workers held hostage by pirates in Somalia”
So the President lashing out over a bruised ego beats American heroes rescuing a hostage….
Oh and here is another that got beat in the reader poll
“Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, for stepping down with grace and dignity…and vowing, ‘I will return”
Daily Kos readers are nuts.
I’ve seen some readers on there that were nuts, but mostly just out of touch.