A blunt take on the SOTU address and the response

I watch the State of the Union address every year out of a sense of duty, not because I enjoy it. This goes for any presidency. The fact of the matter is that no sitting president is going to say that the Union is in disarray. The best that can be hoped for is that you get some commentary on ideas for the future of the nation...and pray that Congress will act on the good ones since they are the ones that make the laws in the place. Every response to the SOTU address will criticize the sitting president and the responding party will toot how the sitting president's administration is sending the country to hell. Wash, rinse, repeat.

And the news networks are even worse. In fact, I really should stop watching the commentary because MSNBC will either criticize or praise the president based on how the speech sounds with little else. Fox News will just be upset that he still has a pulse. CNN will be too preoccupied with showing off new ways to play with a green screen to focus on the subject from any perspective. You could set a watch (or create a drinking game) based on the predictability of it.

As expected, President Obama gave his speech in his typical poised and sometimes dramatic fashion. If there was anything that I hoped would come to fruition, it is this idea that the Executive Branch will look for a way to deal with the crumbling infrastructure without waiting on Congress. Other than that, except for the amusing lighting that made a stream of light hit the president like baby Simba in The Lion King ($10 says that will be the front page of the Washington Post tomorrow), nothing unexpected was said.

I have been waiting for a response that gave hope for a bipartisan effort to run this country and again I was disappointed. What really shocked me was how Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels referred to President Obama's "failed trickle down experiment." The entire notion of trickle down economics was born in the Reagan Administration. I was under the impression that Ronald Reagan was the political equivalent to Chuck Norris for Republicans, so this terminology caught me by surprise. But overall, this speech was more partisan than expected.

State of the Union Address

GOP response