State of the Union...What did you think?

[Gregg]

The crowd seemed a little subdued. Not sure if that was because of the seating chart or because the speech didn't spend much, if any, time on 'radioactive' topics. I thought the bulk of the speech was pretty predictable in light of the November elections and the current political climate. The official Republican response was about what was expected. Mr. Ryan's ideas are sometimes a little controversial which made him an interesting choice to deliver the response. Michele Bachmann's unofficial Tea Party response was, IMO, completely predictable.

Certainly Mr. Obama laid out some worthwhile challenges. 80% clean energy by 2035 is one that really caught my ear. An admirable goal to be sure, even if the spending required would make funding NASA (from our first "Sputnik" moment) look like raiding a kids piggy bank. I was glad to hear talk of things like reduced spending, department consolidation and infrastructure development/support, but also think it is prudent to not get overly optimistic just yet.

We had to grade the speech for DD's class. I gave it a B-.

[Alan]

I was impressed with the overall tone of the speech. Over the last two years I'd wondered if the President would make any attempts to move to the center and was pleasantly surprised to see some evidence of that. The fact that he got behind the incoming majority's no earmarks pledge was a welcome surprise. It's good to see pragmatism override ideology.

I thought the bi-partisan seating arrangments made for a more subdued crowd, but wonder if that won't be an anomoly not to be repeated.

[peggy]

I thought it was a good speech. The future goals were really optimistic and up beat, as was the tone of the whole speech. I think we needed that just now. We need some optimism from our leaders. Despite what 'some' may say, the world, or our country, isn't coming to an end. We have some bumps to be sure, but I have incredible faith in the American spirit and the American people. And American ingenuity! We really can grab the lead on green energy and technology! I know we can! And we can all help with that. It's something we can ALL do! :)
I also found the chamber subdued a bit. I kind of like that. All the cheering and jumping up and stomping gets so tiresome. I thought the applause was appropriate.
I did find it odd just where Boehner (or however you spell it) choose to sit stony faced and not clap. It was when Obama said some man was now able to get help for his brain cancer, or something like that. I thought, 'Really dude? Really? Is this where you want to make a stand?' He couldn't pick some economic thing, or program to not clap about? I just don't think I'd want to be known in my district as the guy who was against curing brain cancer.:0!

[pinkytoe]

Funny...I told dh that Boehner looked like he was constipated.
I thought the speech was fine but as usual the other side pundits were already bashing him again this morning.
The whole thing on both sides is like a broken record...

[Zigzagman]

As Aretha said in '67 "R-E-S-P-E-C-T; Take care, TCB", every time I see Obama I think of how fortunate we are to have someone with his skills as President. I think he masterfully challenged the "new" Congress to respond to our nations challenges without hurting the most vernable in our society.

The situation we find ourselves was not created in the last two years and it will take time to correct the last 30 years of global economic change. I personally think that all he can do is articulate our problems without getting into divisive "soap opera" politics and he seemed to do that.

I remain disappointed more emphasis was not put on getting out of the military mess we find ourselves in - at some point we have to face maybe our biggest problem - the military industrial complex.

Peace

[Gina]

I thought it was safe, slightly boring, and specifically geared to not ruffle too many feathers.

Politically speaking, he did go more to the center, perhaps to appeal to more independents. If his 'base' doesn't totally approve, who else are they going to vote for? Michelle Bachmann? :devil:


I thought the bipartisan seating made it appear that more in attendance approved of Obama's speech than might actually have --- it's simply easier to notice people who are standing and clapping across the entire room more so than those who remain seated and are not moving. A stoic solid mass would have made a more striking statement of disapproval so I doubt co-mingling of the parties will happen again. Unfortunately the SOTU is more about political theather than substance.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I thought it was safe, slightly boring, and specifically geared to not ruffle too many feathers.

Yea



Politically speaking, he did go more to the center, perhaps to appeal to more independents. If his 'base' doesn't totally approve, who else are they going to vote for? Michelle Bachmann? :devil:

Because a health care proposal that mandated buying from private companies was so left of center it was practically Karl Marx ....

Well ok, spending money we don't have has gotten all the more out of hand under Obama, so if you are just looking at the bottom line you might well conclude government is totally out of control. But none of what most of that money was spent on was very left wing in ideology.

As for where else is anyone going to go: you can just choose not to vote for one of the major party candidates. In fact for the top offices (yea president and some senatorial positions) I think the case can be strongly made that the candidates are so evil that this is the only decent choice (but not due to what they say in their speeches but all the issues they don't mention in them).


Unfortunately the SOTU is more about political theather than substance.

That's actually not true, a lot of things that later became proposals were first announced in state of the union speeches.

What to expect? More money wasted on infrastructure boondoggles. Now there are definitely useful ways to invest in infrastructure (I'm not claiming it's wasteful a priori or anything) but how things actually tend to work with government ... mark my word we'll have boondoggles, if we are lucky we won't have 100% boondoggles and a few useful things will get built :). Clean coal and stuff still equivocated as "clean energy", even thought the environmental damage is real. It will continue unabated, nothing new here. The wars also will continue unabated, barely mentionable, we have always been at war .... Innovation and education with the goal of competition in a race to the bottom, the only possible answers when approaching things from a technocratic mindset. It's not a bad answer within that framework though, it works for countries like Germany and with a real social democracy to boot, the only problem is, well, I'm not sure we can ever be modern Germany.

It's definitely a speech of diminished expectations. You can claim this is in response to a Republican victory, and I'm sure many Republicans would like to think so, but on a deeper level which most Americans don't like to admit, it's really a response to reality. We ARE a nation/empire in decline.