State of the Union Live Blog

46 comments on “State of the Union Live Blog”

1. I wish you would live blog Michelle Bachmann’s response. She’s sure to provide epic awesomeness – and by “epic awesomeness” I mean “horrific bat-šhìŧ craziness”.

2. Cracked State of the Union Mad Libs and more. 🙂
   http://www.cracked.com/funny-4205-state-union/

3. For months I’ve believed that Republicans are fooling themselves by thinking that the voters sent them to Washington to do this or do that campaign promise, but instead voted against Democrats who were unable to get anything done.

   1. The Democrats got a ton of stuff done. I don’t agree with every detail and there’s stuff I wanted that didn’t get done, but they accomplished a lot of what they’d said they’d do in the last election.

4. “9:28: Is it my imagination or is the applause way more perfunctory than usual?”

   It seems to be that way whenever the Congress and President are of opposing parties.

   1. I wonder if the mixed seating dampens the enthusiasm of the President’s party.

5. The first time someone blows up an Amtrak passenger liner, Fox news is going to declare terrorists got the idea from the State of the Union speech.
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   It might be spun that way, but in the end, the terrorists are a lot more creative than many (particularly those in government) give them credit for.
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   But then, Pistole and Napolitano have already said they want to expand TSA’s groping and pørņø-scanners to trains and boats. So, if that’s not allowed to happen, Fox will still have somebody to blame.

   1. 9:47: IS the worst of the recession over?
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      Depends on who you ask, I suppose. An article I read recently said that it very well could be another record year for foreclosures.
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      9:48: And the speaker did not applaud the notion of a five year spending freeze. Interesting.
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      The Speaker looks like he would rather be somewhere, anywhere else.

   2. If the terrorists are so dámņ creative how come they have been so ineffective since 9/11? You and I could, over a beer, come up with a few dozen swell terrorist scenarios that seem to have not occurred to these geniuses.
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      You know, the “let’s all sit together” thing probably seemed like a good idea but it’s totally messing up the applause cues.

      1. Smart thing to say there, Bill, about coming up with terrorist scenarios. You’re gonna land us both on the No-Fly list.
         .
         PAD

      2. .
         Oh, we’ve already discussed that kind of thing here tons of times. We’re all already screwed.
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         Hollow, tepid speech followed by a hollow, boring rebuttal. But, hey, at least they managed to hit all of the talking points.

      3. I’m pretty sure I’m already on some list, if there is anything to the claims that searching the web for certain key phrases–“Thermite” “ballistic gelatin” “making lava with a microwave, glass and a blowtorch”–gets attention.
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         But if any military minds are out there reading, I’ll be more than happy to share some thoughts over shrimp cocktails. As a patriotic American I can do no less!
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         (To show the sort of outside the box thinking you get for your shrimp, here’s one for free–you guys should be putting up various webpages and torrent files on how to build bombs and grow botulism toxins, exact to the last detail EXCEPT that anyone stupid enough to follow the directions will almost certainly blow up their ragged botulism-infected ášš to kingdom come. Will it possibly kill a few innocents as well? Only if one has a very generous definition of innocents that includes anyone wanting to build a botulism grenade.)
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         (Actually I’m not sure this hasn’t already been done since my admittedly incomplete knowledge of bombs and bio-toxins has led me to suspect that some of the sites I’ve visited are either deliberate attempts to blow up the curious or were just made by people who are not as bright as they think they are (and probably are missing at least one thumb.)

      4. Creativity has nothing to do with how effective said ideas/plans are.
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         People have imagined some pretty fanciful stuff and then tried to follow up on it. I’m still waiting for my hover car. 🙂

      5. If the terrorists are so dámņ creative how come they have been so ineffective since 9/11? You and I could, over a beer, come up with a few dozen swell terrorist scenarios that seem to have not occurred to these geniuses.

         Didn’t PAD once talk about doing just that, on behest of the government itself? I seem to recall him getting seated with a general who happened to be a big Hulk fan… or am I hallucinating again?

         J.

      6. Didn’t PAD once talk about doing just that, on behest of the government itself? I seem to recall him getting seated with a general who happened to be a big Hulk fan… or am I hallucinating again?
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         You’re hallucinating. Actually, you’re mashing up a couple of different scenarios. I was invited, as part of a civilian interaction program, to be a guest along with about a hundred other people at an AFB. But it wasn’t security-related. Some comic writers–or at least one–on the other hand, were indeed invited by the government to come up with terrorist scenarios. But I was not among them.
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         PAD

      7. Recently listened to a Word balloon podcast in which Brad Meltzer mentioned he’d been asked to participate in a group doing just that. Can’t remember what name he gave for it. Program something or project something. Anyway, gov’t brings in several folks from outside to dream up ways to attack things. Meltzer said they’d come up with several ways to destroy a city pretty quickly.

6. Laughed out loud on the Franken comment, Peter. I live in PA but contributed to his campaign but the first couple of times I saw Al acting as Senate president I had to remind myself that it was not a Saturday Night Live sketch.

7. Thanks for doing this, I really enjoyed your commentary.

8. No, Bachman is going to come on after Ryan gives the GOP response, and respond to him… Or something.

   1. We almost made it through the entire thing without a Nazi reference. Then, Bachmann went and spoiled it by comparing the Dems to Hitler’s Germany.

      1. Did she accidentally say anything sane and/or intelligent?

      2. I really wish the GOP would make up their mind:
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         Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., wrote on his Twitter feed during the speech – among other critiques – “Mr. President, you don’t believe in the Constitution. You believe in socialism.”
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         So, the Democrats are once again both socialists AND Nazis.
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         That is, like much that comes from the Republicans right now, talking/typing out of both ends.

      3. not to take away from the sheer stupidity of invoking nazis when talking about perfectly legitimate political opinions (ie 97.6% of the opinions in this country, even the ones I disagree with) but is it really so impossible to be a nazi AND a socialist? National Socialist German Workers Party, after all.

      4. I would say it’s impossible for one to be both a nazi and a socialist. Don’t let the name fool you, National Socialism is actually a hybrid that violently rejects some basic tenets of socialism (pluralism and materialism, for instance).

      5. National Socialist German Workers Party, after all.
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         As Rene said, the name itself means little; it’s all about the underlying fundamentals of the Nazi party, which is fascism.
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         Take, for instance, China. The People’s Republic of China. Does anybody think of it as a Republic? No, they see a dictatorship under Communism. At any rate, fascism and socialism have long been considered at opposite ends of the political spectrum.
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         It seems that only in recent years (dare I say it, since the election of Obama specifically) have some tried to tie the two together in some fashion. And in that, it seems more about trying to paint liberals as some kind of Ultimate Evil: he’s socialist AND fascist! Run for the hills! For all the accusations of Bush being a fascist, I don’t think anybody ever accused him of being a socialist, too.
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         This also goes back to why I get a laugh out of anybody foolish enough to use the photoshop of Obama in the Joker makeup from The Dark Knight. That Joker was an anarchist, which really screams socialist or fascist, doesn’t it?

      6. Nazism and socialism may have long been considered polar opposites but that doesn’t make it so. The nazis were anti-capitalists as well, seeing it as just another Jewish ideology.
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         Part of this is apples and oranges–socialism is (mostly) an economic theory while the nazis were a political ideology. One could easily be in favor of a socialist economy while still being a race-hating nationalist.
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         Rene, I’m not sure that pluralism and materialism are so basic to economic socialism that they could not be rejected by a genuinely socialistic economy.

      7. Years ago, I said “screw it” and decided that the Nazis weren’t really left-wing or right-wing, as we think of them today. Rather, they took the worst elements of both.
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         One that really bugs me is when they refer to the liberal thugs as “brownshirts.” The Democrats’ preferred Brute Squad wears purple shirts.
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         J.

      8. Bill, theoretically, it might be possible. In practice, I never saw it happen. Nazism was built on the tripod of race, land, and tradition. It might be possible to couple that with a centrally planned economy. But I’ve only seen two basic types of socialist regime in real life.
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         The Soviets, the French revolutionaries, the Cubans, all were ruthless in the destruction of old traditions and the violent rebuilding of society under new lines, supposedly “rational.” That is the opposite motivation of nazism, that sought to resurrect ancient imperial glory. I think it would be a hard sell for a supposed nazi-communist group to combine both.
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         The second sort of socialism is pretty much socialism mixed with democracy, European style. That seems even more antithetical to Nazism. Since these regimes are the most multicultural of all.

      9. Rene, I would simply surmise then that nazisim was just a third type of socialism. The fact that it does not conform exactly to the other two types is not significat–they don;t conform to each other either but you regard them as socialism.
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         It seems that the crux of the matter is the question of whether or not nazi Germany had a centrally planned economy. The National Socialist 25 point program included “the right to employment, profit sharing, confiscation of war profits, prosecution of userers and profiteers, nationalization of trusts, communalization of department stores, extension of the old-age pension system, creation of a national education program of all classes, prohibition of child labour, and an end to the dominance of investment capital…legal land expropriation for public utility, abolishment of the land value tax, and proscription of land speculation” (from wikipedia)
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         Looking through this it’s interesting to see that Hitler really did not give a rat’s ášš about economic issues, as illustrated by the fact that even their own economic policies often contradicted themselves. And fascism, while admired by Hitler, was not the economic form the nazis used.
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         I should note that I do not in any way think that the nazis being a form of socialism would in any real way tell us anything about the value of other forms of socialism, any more than the excesses of robber barons and those who exploit child labor tell us anything about the value of capitalism.

      10. There’s also the possibility that the word “sozialistische” doesn’t mean what the apparent English cognate means – consider that if a German offers you a “gift” you wouldn’t want to accept it…

      11. “Rene, I would simply surmise then that nazisim was just a third type of socialism.”
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          “It seems that the crux of the matter is the question of whether or not nazi Germany had a centrally planned economy.”
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          From a historical POV you have to consider other things. How Nazism developed in relation to other ideologies, the way it positioned itself, and was positioned by others. Who was it allied with. Other aspects of the ideology beyond the economy.
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          Calling it just another kind of socialism obscures all these historical aspects.
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          There is no doubt that Fascism emerged out of the very far edge of the left. There is also no doubt that it was influenced by aspects of Communist totalitarianism and economy. It’s also true that communists countries tended to be pretty nationalistic despite everything. However, as an ideology, Nazism positioned itself and was viewed as opposition to Socialism in most respects, including economically. It’s success is largely connected to presenting itself as blocking the revolution and class struggle of socialism, as well as the materialism and internationalism.
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          On the other hand it is equally false to present Socialism as the ‘good’ opposition to evil Fascism, the way some people on the Left do. That obscures some of the aspects of Communism.

9. the NBC republican started by talking about Arizona as well

10. 9:23: He needs to work on clear, obvious applause points. I’ve never heard this many stutter steps for applause. “Are we clapping now? Yes? No? Ðámņ.”

    Are you kidding? The lack of claptrap is a wonderful change of pace.

11. Please don’t insult the great Ben Kingsley by comparing him to Waxman. They don’t even look alike– remember, Kingsley has a large nose, Waxman has no nose at all.

12. “9:29: Yes, absolutely, it’s not just the winner of the Superbowl who should be celebrating, especially when the Jets aren’t involved.”

    Or the Colts.

    I was watching it on CBS and someone, I think Bob Schieffer, compared part of the speech to Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I’ve been to the mountaintop” speech. Now, I’m praying that Obama makes it through the next 24 hours.

13. I must admit, I tuned in and out of the SOTU or the response(s) because there are never any surprises (“I’ve been murdering two hobos a month since becoming President,” “As soon as I used the word ‘governing’ the military invasion of Canada was launched”) and very few specifics. The latter are key when it comes to the budget cuts: It’s great to talk about education, but with talk of freezing or reducing spending there gonna take some hits; and after the talk of how Loughner (sic?) fell through the cracks of the mental health care net in Arizona, the state’s cutting its mental health care budget by a substantial amount. I’d rather wait to see the budgets submitted and debated in the House and Senate — more of what will get done, as opposed to a vision of what could be done.

    The mixed seating was a mixed result. Yes, it’s nice to have the two parties shown together, instead of on (literally) other sides of the aisle, reinforcing the Republican idea that the Democrats are the evil Socialists out to destroy the country. But it was odd to see one person behind the President clapping while the other just sat there.

14. .
    Wow, given the length of other SoTU threads… Well, either nobody cared what Obama, the GOP rebuttal or Madam InsaniTEA had to say or they cared but became indifferent to the whole thing by the end of it. Not a great sign for any of them as far as our little sampling pool goes.

15. And for her delivery on CNN, Bachmann looked at the wrong camera for the entire Tea rebuttal.

    I begin to wonder if Bachmann is actually on retainer for Stewart and Colbert. She gives them so much material …

    1. Apparently, Bachmann was facing into a webcam,for a Tea Party website.

       1. So I understand. Very careless.

       2. Not to mention wonky makeup and such. Just gave an air of Amateur Hour.

          Either that, or it’s a clear declaration by the Tea Party that they intend to govern entirely for the Tea Party and the Tea Party alone and they’ll just ignore anything from the rest of us.

       3. Oh, I dunno, Roger. I don’t see why it can’t be both: Amateurs who intend to govern only for themselves.
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          PAD

16. “9:09: I think it would be funny if he shook hands, shook hands, shook hands and then just kept going right out the back door.”

    Sounds like something Groucho would have done in Duck Soup!

    1. Actually, that’s something we learned to do in the Canadian diplomatic service. We had to go to so many cocktail parties, often 4 or 5 the same night, that we learned to pick up a drink as you arrived, shake a bunch of hands or bow as appropriate, put your drink down somewhere, and discretely depart for the next obligatory appearance.

       The Rev. Mr. Black

17. “9:20: We have the largest, most prosperous economy in the world? Really? Anyone fact-checking that?”
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    Actually, I think this one is true, (though it’s probably telling that many find that so hard to believe nowadays.)
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    I don’t know how one might quantify being a “prosperous” economy, but “largest economies” are often ranked in terms of GDP (Purchasing Power Parity.) Looked at in those terms, the 2010 estimate at https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html puts the entire European Union at slightly larger than the United States, but the largest single country listed.
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    China’s second, though. And none of this speaks to how fast various economies are growing. (I would imagine that several other countries on the list are growing at a faster rate than the U.S. or maybe even China.) But, yeah, it does seem that the U.S. is the country with the largest economy in the world.

18. Completely off this topic, PAD, but I am fairly certain you don’t read too many right-wing blogs. One of the more prominent ones just posted a really interesting review of Green Hornet, and I thought it provided an interesting contrast to your own review.
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    http://ace.mu.nu/archives/311268.php
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    J.