How Was That Speech?

15 Comments

1. 

   seabe on January 21, 2015 at 10:40 am

   Three things:

   1. He didn’t need to mention abortion. But since he did, he did it in the worst possible way. He should have said “we may not all agree with abortion personally, but surely we can agree that women should be free to make their own health care choices.” Much better than “we may not all agree on a woman’s right to choose.” It was better than Clinton’s “safe, legal, rare” claptrap, but still bad.
   2. His framing of the trade deal in terms of giving “China” the ability to “write the rules” was needlessly jingoistic, and also a pathetic attempt at getting Democraic support. Stop hiding your shitty trade deals under the guise of “leading the world”. It’s a terrible deal and you know it.

   3. The entire foreign policy area, except for Cuba and Iran, were abysmal at best, and outright lies at worst.

2. 

   Brendan Skwire on January 21, 2015 at 10:57 am

   I actually appreciated the abortion reference. Agreed on the trade deals.

   I especially liked framing minimum wage as $15,000 a year. A commenter in the other thread wrote, accurately I felt, that it’s high time we stop thinking in hourly terms.

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     hawesg on January 21, 2015 at 11:23 am

     I thought the abortion reference was well-framed.  The point is having a planned child birth, not a forced child birth.  Abortions are a symptom of poor sexual knowledge (Abstinence only!) not a preferred outcome.

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     janicket on January 21, 2015 at 11:24 am

     Loved loved loved his challenging anyone who thinks 15 grand a year will support a family to go try living on it.

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       centerfielddj on January 21, 2015 at 11:36 am

       That framing does respond to the muy macho right-wing way of thinking- “if you don’t like America, try living somewhere else!”. And raising the minimum wage is an issue that even voters who supported Republicans in a number of States voted for. So that was a good, visceral way for the President to attach the minimum wage to greater opportunity for Americans.

       And, again, it was informative for Americans who were tuned in to see the Speaker look all sour and unsupportive during that portion of the address.

3. 

   centerfielddj on January 21, 2015 at 11:19 am

   The President provided value by naming the litany of disastrous consequences that Republicans predicted would result from the ACA and other policies, and pointing out that they have not materialized. Economy up, deficit down, rising health care costs reduced, etc.

   I liked that he said nothing about entitlement reform or the deficit, and got in a plug for unions. Would have liked to have heard him expand on the ways Labor can help workers, though.

   And, of course, the President’s oh SNAP with his “I know, I won both campaigns” comeback to the Republican Caucus’ ungraciousness was very emotionally satisfying.

   My wife and I enjoyed goofing on Senator Ernst’s response. We called it “The bread bag speech.” Seeing almost any politician speak soon after Barack deepens my appreciation for the President’s terrific skills. What a special talent he has developed, a talent which has great meaning to our nation right now, in so many ways.

   It also had value to see Speaker Boehner constantly register displeasure with factual citations of good outcomes and discussions of popular policy goals. “The conservative stands athwart history, yelling ‘Stop'”- yes, Dead Buckley, you described your movement quite accurately.

   I grumbled through Obama’s defense of drones and other dubious security policies; I hope the political damage he is suffering within the Democratic Party and the left-wing movement is enough to get the next Democratic nominee to move us to a better set of policies there.

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     centerfielddj on January 21, 2015 at 11:28 am

     Edit error- the President said nothing about the need to seek further bipartisan austerity agreements to reduce the deficit. Instead, he pointed out that the deficit has already reduced very rapidly, and did not applaud the rotten bipartisan sequestration budgets which have been part of that deficit reduction. Instead, he used the reduced deficit as a lever to support his plans for necessary infrastructure, education and other investments.

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       yastreblyansky on January 21, 2015 at 1:59 pm

       Given that he couldn’t possibly have told the truth even if he knows it–“We would have recovered a couple of years ago if we only could have had more spending and a higher deficit”–it was the best we could hope for that he’d mention the lemonade you can get out of that lemon.

4. 

   lamh31 on January 21, 2015 at 12:39 pm

   Why worry about this speech, isn’t the real SOTU gonna be when Bibi Netanyahu addresses Congress?  Boehner has invited him to do so.

5. 

   yastreblyansky on January 21, 2015 at 1:53 pm

   My 18-year-old looked up from his screen in surprise and said, “Hey, that’s a good speech” in the tone of somebody his age saying “Hey, that Elvis Presley had a good voice.” It may have been better than it sounded to us junkies who have heard too much.

   I have a contrarian view on the trade negotiations: he seemed so sure that this time would be different from all the other times, and the threat of China being able to dictate Asia-Pacific trade rules is real. It’s not going to be great, but it could be acceptable, and it could definitely be preferable to not having a deal.

   I was kind of upset by the silly-hypocrite moments where he touted his success in “stopping ISIL” and so on, especially the education paragraph which seemed delusional. But I loved his generally marking out a space to be progressive in instead of focusing on all the measures McConnell would like to vote yes on, and the pleasure he takes in things that Republicans hate.

6. 

   JimPharo on January 21, 2015 at 2:17 pm

   The difference last night was the President’s willingness to publicly confront the GOP directly.  He did so rhetorically (won them both) as well as by reiterating all the policies he’s pursuing, under circumstances where it’s clear that his policies have had success. (And I don’t suppose I can blame him if he can’t help but point out that these success were in spite of GOP opposition.)

   As a speech, fine.  Even good-ish.  But as much as we loved the swagger, etc., the applause lines fizzled, he was repeatedly shouting over applause lines that weren’t amenable to it, etc.

   Finally — ultimately — the problem was that he was laying down a marker for posterity, and everyone on both sides knew it.  People aren’t going to take seriously a politics that is so obviously free of content.  The dissonance between the pretend world of the SOTU and the real world simply builds disillusionment.

   As for Sen. Ernst, she was the living embodiment of the unctuous official in the Harry Potter movie, Dolores Umbridge (?).  And I found her suggestion that “all we need is for the President to cooperate” so condescending and off-putting that I don’t think I’d leave my kids alone with her.  Same thing with her line about “correcting” BHO’s executive action.  So patently and deeply insulting so as to diminish her (and the brand she represents) with all but their most die-hard supporters.

   I also loved the Cruz iPhone response.  If he weren’t so dangerous he’d be hilarious.

7. 

   on January 21, 2015 at 3:12 pm

   Good marks on DP generally and for decent speech making overall.

   But on ISIS, he’s naive.  They appear to be gaining ground, as I understand a recent CIA estimate.  We will probably need a new approach, or that will become apparent soon, and I just hope that doesn’t involve sending tens of thousands of our troops to lead some bogus coalition.

   On Russia, even worse.  He seems to think it’s just peachy that their economy “is in tatters” as a result largely of our sanctions, recently ratcheted up.  I don’t like the idea of a proud bear Russia being hammered on its economy as a result of hostile, punitive actions by the West, and I know Putin et al are not going to react by meekly comforting their behavior on Ukraine to fit our plans.

   Obama also seems to applaud the notion that Russia is now “isolated” thanks to a united western effort.  Well, maybe, except for Russia’s increasing ties with a country called China.  France, and possibly other western euro countries, are also beginning to resist further sanction efforts, finally realizing poking the big bear in the rear might get the animal angry.

   We’re headed for disaster with that country — a real nasty hot war of unimaginable proportions — unless someone wises up in the WH and also gets some courage to defy his hawkish advisers.  He doesn’t have the electorate to face any longer — so should be free just as in DP to begin rethinking the stupid status quo.

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     IL JimP on January 21, 2015 at 7:43 pm

     so we shouldn’t do anything in reaction to Russia’s behavior?  I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make.  Let’s them big foot around their neighborhood and threaten allies and we should do nothing or maybe say some pretty words?

     I’m glad we decided to use something other than our military to confront Russia

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       on January 22, 2015 at 10:20 am

       Why should we?  Ukraine is not in our nat’l security interests.  But it is in Russia’s sphere, right in their backyard.  Would we be ok if Russia decided to form a military-political alliance with, say, Canada?

       And while we always think our intentions are pure and that should be clear to all the world, not everyone appreciates the purity of our motivations and that we are the alleged “indispensable” nation in the world.  

       Russia clearly sees the US-led effort by NATO and the EU in Ukraine as a threat, a direct security threat to them, while our leaders seem utterly incapable of seeing things from the other side’s perspective. If we continue to be stupid, seeing the situation only from our morally superior perspective, almost certainly things will devolve to the point where we will be compelled to use our military to confront Russia.

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         IL JimP on January 22, 2015 at 5:50 pm

         Putin is a bully and you have to stand up to a bully.  It’s not just Ukraine which is at risk, obviously the Europeans feel threatened as well otherwise the sanctions wouldn’t work.