Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Brief Reaction to State of the Union Speech and It's Rebuttals

Eugene Robinson
Dana Milbank
State of the Union Full Text
"It was OK" - John Boehner
"Every Republican in Congress voted to repeal the health care legislation. They admitted it was symbolic, but it does enable Republicans to brag in campaign ads next year that they voted to let poor people die." – Bill Maher

"Next week Boehner will be sitting behind Obama at the State of the Union address. I think Obama should purposely try to embarrass him by telling the story of Old Yeller. The State of Our Union is strong, but not so good for one special dog.'" – Bill Maher


How did you like the President's State of the Union speech? You can read the full text in the link above, or just skip all that and go straight to the dissections in the local papers. The problem with being a good orator is that people expect you to knock their socks off every time. Obama gave a decent speech, tried to keep it upbeat and positive, emphasizing what we need to do in the near future. He didn't tell many jokes, he usually uses the writers from the Daily Show, and this time it looks like he got this one off of the Internet: ""The Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they're in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them in when they're in saltwater. And I hear it gets even more complicated once they're smoked."

More interesting, was the audience, or should I say lack of response from the audience. Sitting in a new format, one Dem, one Repub, etc, proved to be more formal and produced zero catcalls, with everyone looking at each other out of the corners of their eyes, or in the case of Michele Bachmann, off to the side directly into the tea party express camera, which focused mostly on her reaction than to Obama giving the speech. Priorities... Obama went middle of the road, often co-opting Republican ideas and talking points, not leaving them much room to wriggle. One thing he proposed, and nobody seemed to have noticed, is that he has offered to re-organize the federal government, the actual bureaucratic structure, so that there are no more redundant departments, which will slim down and become more responsive. If he actually does that, he has taken care of the tea party's main complaints, and they will be a party without a cause, have to rename themselves the hemlock tea party or kool aid express...

The problem with the Republican responses are that they are written well before the President gives his speech, so there is always a disconnect, and they often have nothing to do with any content of his speech. It really showed when Bobby Jindal gave it last year, and Paul Ryan didn't come across as an idiot this year. A little Bible quoting and a little quoting from the Constitution. He did an OK job, using only a few cliches and keeping the temper of the speech in the doom and gloom area, showing that the Republicans just don't have an adequate response to Barack Obama. Obama showed that he learned something from the mid-term elections, has changed focus of his actions and speeches, while the Republicans feel that they can rest on the mid-term results and that is enough success for them for the next two years. At this rate, they will lose their shirts in the next election because Obama has taken and used all of their good ideas, leaving them with the ideological dregs...

The tea party has proven to be rather short on ideas and unbending in the few they have. Less government and cutting taxes and repealing health care, that's it, our solutions and our saviors. If Obama restructures the federal government and it becomes more efficient and responsive, and if he fixes the problems with the health care bill, the only thing left on their plate are cutting taxes. Then, they might as well rejoin the Republican Party, lest they sink beneath the waves in motley despair.



One of our local reporters was feeling frisky today, I don't know if this was slipped past the editors or if they, too, have a sense of humor. Anyway, this is one incident I would love to see on Youtube:

By Maria St. Louis-Sanchez
The Gazette
POSTED: 01/25/2011 10:19:56 AM MST
UPDATED: 01/25/2011 10:21:39 AM MST

A Chihuahua's life was saved Monday afternoon when a firefighter pulled the dog from a burning home and gave him mouth-to-snout resuscitation.

In all, three dogs were saved from the blaze at 1920 Chamberlin South, said Darren Pellett, the Stratmoor Hills firefighter who rescued the small dog. No people were in the home when the fire broke out about 1 p.m. and burned the home's main level.







No comments:

Post a Comment

Hi! Thanks for commenting. I always try to respond...