Note: This was actually an address to a joint session of Congress NOT a State of the Union Speech as everyone is reporting it. We’re reporting it that way too although we know better.

State of the Union Speech

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Read the speech here.




  1. Dallas says:

    Note the country is going the worst economic times in recent history and observe above sour or apathetic response to the ‘state of the union’ address.

    You are the losers dragging down the country. Shame on you. I suspect some that claim to ‘didn’t watch and didn’t care’ are just lying partisans.

    Even I listened to the GOP response from American Idol loser, Sanjaya. Glad he found a place to work. I thought it was good.

  2. contempt says:

    The one thing about Obama is that no matter what he says, believe the opposite and you are golden. The Obamanation hasn’t told the truth yet so with that kind of consistency at least we know where the truth is hiding.

  3. RTaylor says:

    This was suppose to be a pep talk to the nation. People are scared, and have a right to be. An economy has a life of it’s own. In the long run government has a minimal effect. Historically intervention has probably done more damage that good. Banks has got to lend and consumers has to spend. Spend within their means that is. The surplus housing market has to dry up and prices stabilize. That will take time, probably a few years. I think the government should have bought all these foreclosed unsold houses and raze them.

  4. jbenson2 says:

    And the big winner category was:

    “Who cares. That was tonight?” coming in with a strong 41.73% of the voters.

  5. HMeyers says:

    @ 31 Bobbo

    “In short, Saddam was contained.”

    Again, you are making the argument that is OK that he was suppressing his people.

    I think that is a very selfish Western-centric point of view that is very typical of white people deciding that it is ok for other races of people to live with oppression.

    I mean, we went to Kosovo in the 1990s to stop genocide.

    I think Iraq was the right thing to do, but we did it for all the wrong reasons and some of it was handled poorly.

    I agree the logic was all wrong (no WMD, no imminent threat) and the handling in the middle was downright terrible.

    And in a LOL irony, 100 years from now I bet it will be the only thing anyone remembers about GW Bush and there might even be some statue erected in his honor in Iraq.

  6. bobbo says:

    #37–HMyers==human rights victims call out much louder in several other areas of the world. Its not the role of “any” country black/white/yellow/brown to invade countries based on what they like and don’t like==in fact, its a violation of international law.

    What good does it do to invade and occupy a country for the “justice” involved if the invading country goes bankrupt doing it?

    No==the FIRST duty of any country is to protect its own interests. Bush did not do that.

    I think “the odds are” when we pull out enough troops and stop paying all sides not to fight us that a civil war will break out in Iraq pitting the various factions against one another with gobs of outside interests fighting their own wars of proxy.

    I’m all for the USA being part of international coalitions fighting for justice===thats not what Iraq #2 involved so your rhetoric is beyond partisan, its twisted and unsupportable.

    But yea==who knew what an empty threat Sadam was militarily? I suspect much the same exists with Iran as well until they get the Nuke==as is Pakistan without the Nuke.

    I would take Irans Nuclear capability out. Easy, cheap, fast to bomb a few facilities. I would not invade them.

    A statute of Bush==what??? To throw shoes at maybe.

  7. Mac Guy says:

    This was not the State of the Union. C’mon, guys.

    I, too, hated seeing Pelosi pop up like a jack-in-the-box with poor impulse control. Think she’s trying to steal a little spotlight?

  8. Shubee says:

    That was a truly wonderful speech. The only problem is that the vision of a glistening future will fail. It has to. This is the end of the world.

  9. Rabble Rouser says:

    I liked the speech, but what was with the infomercial afterward?
    It seems that they took “Vince,” the ShamWow guy, tanned him, put a suit on him, and gave him a different name to sell their same old garbage that we have been hearing since the days of Reagan!

  10. HMeyers says:

    @Bobbo

    I agree with what you said. I also feel that in this otherwise mindless world I get a laugh out of the right thing happening for the wrong reason. We invaded Iraq solely because Saddam tried to have Bush 41 killed in mid-1990s, everything else was just the show.

    “involved if the invading country goes bankrupt doing it?”

    I want the USA to go bankrupt so the faster we get to that bridge so we can overcome it the better.

    I think the USA is a great country and in order to solve the problems we have, we have to reach a point where things must be fixed.

    We like to rack up the debt and the imports. The best way to truly correct the country is to be in a position where it can’t continue.

    And after the problem is solved, everyone will feel so much better and be so much more optimistic.

    Confronting problems is a sign of strength, avoiding them is a sign of weakness.

    Does the media really talk about the problem?

    No.

    I am disappointed at how gutless the media is.

    I mean, the impending banking crisis was obvious 4-5 years ago. Why the hell does the media sit on it’s hands about import/export situation? Or Social Security obligations?

    We have a dysfunctional political environment where left vs. right name calling and shitmongering is considered political debate and “I hate Bush” or “Obama is just talk” is considered deep political thought.

    We have a dysfunctional media that does not do actual reporting and would not impress Woodward and Bernstein in the slightest.

    Why live in the calm before the storm when the real living only comes with the storm itself?

    Bring on the storm!

    😉

  11. Bob says:

    Reminded me of the old black and white movies I see on the History channel of Hitler preaching to his supporters.

    He really could have saved us all a bunch of time by just saying, “Guys I plan to use this crises to make government bigger, and more powerful. By doing this more than half the people will be reliant on the federal government, which will insure democrats will never be out of power again.”

    At least it would have been honest.

  12. Sinn Fein says:

    OBAMA IS A WMB – WEAPON OF MASS BOREDOM.If anybody in the world tries to give us trouble, we can launch our WMB and his speeches will ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ them into submission.

  13. bobbo says:

    #42–HMyers==well we basically agree on these few issues. I have spent some time on sail and motor boats. I much prefer calm waters. No reason to put things into extremis to motivate yourself, acting rationally for one’s own long term interest should be the goal.

    Seems to me you are caricaturing the Repuglican position that the government most often is the problem? Doing things poorly is a reason to correct those actions, not an excuse or political philosophy.

    I think we should require competency in all of our elected officials==which is why we should VOTE ALL INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE!!!!

  14. Olo Baggins of Bywater says:

    Let history be our guide. Obama mentioned this topic in my link, and HMeyers you said the media doesn’t pay enough attention to real issues. Maybe not, but at least one pundit does:
    http://cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/25/zelizer.wall.street/

    As for social security, the answer is amazingly simple. Creep the retirement age up one or two years and the entire fake “crisis” vanishes. Back when the program was created people didn’t live much beyond 65. Today, IMO, we need to stay working longer because a 30-year retirement on the government dole seems too damn long. The problem is that our politicians are too chicken to implement the obvious, sensible, easy answer.

  15. Paddy-O says:

    Typical speech from a pol (of any stripe). Didn’t say anything not already said. No solid info. Yawn.

  16. Cephus says:

    Of course there was no solid info, I don’t think they have any real clue how they’re going to do half of those things. Obama could have gotten up there and promised every American family a million dollars and a goose that lays golden eggs, none of that matters until he manages to get it done. That’s why I think most speeches are worthless. Either put up or shut up, yammering on about it doesn’t get the job done.

  17. Olo Baggins of Bywater says:

    You miss the point. This was cheerleading. It was intended to be cheerleading, as was every other SotU speech ever given.

  18. Ralph says:

    Great Speech.

    Obama just drew the line that differentiates the campaign with his government. What was said four months ago was just political fluff. Now, he is on record as saying, “This is MY agenda”. That is what he will be held accountable for.

    As a funny aside, When I grabbed the mail today there was a glossy brochure from our Republican Senator touting how the Stimulus will help us. As much as I think Mr. Luger is a great guy, this is funny. He voted against the package.

  19. Mr. Fusion says:

    #48, cephus,

    Of course there was no solid info, I don’t think they have any real clue how they’re going to do half of those things.

    Bullshit. If he had outlined his programs in detail you, and the rest of the Republican speed bumps to recovery, would have been complaining about too much info and the length of his speech.

    I think Jindal was way too boring. I’m sure I could see some strings hanging from the ceiling to work his mouth.

  20. Paddy-O says:

    9 Olo Baggins of Bywater said, “You miss the point. This was cheerleading. It was intended to be cheerleading, as was every other SotU speech ever given.”

    Ah yes, pablum for the sheeple.

  21. Billy Bob says:

    Until he gets serious about throwing the Wall Street criminals in jail, it’s all more No Banker Left Behind rationalization of the banksters looting of the Treasury.

  22. smittybc says:

    The problem with the speech of course is that he convincingly promises to do things that simply cannot be done (something Obama is very good at), because the costs are so massively high. We would need massive economic growth just to keep up with the spending, and that growth (if it even comes) will be hobbled by tax increases coming next year.

    The problem with the Left is that they attempt to build their agenda on serial fantasies, fantasies which ignore the real benefits of things such as private sector growth and risk/reward incentives, and instead embraces low productivity, public sector jobs, and vaporware energy solutions. We are living in this fantasy land in CA with massive tax increases on the most productive among us, meanwhile CA based Intel gets on with life regardless of the politicians and invests 7 billion in states outside of CA. The house of cards will eventually collapse, it always does.

    The president’s talk was well phrased and beautifully delivered, and sadly deeply disconnected from the realities of economic growth.

  23. qsabe says:

    Refreshing after 8 years of a lying sack of excrement. He can do, but it has only been a month and already the idiots here are complaining he hasn’t yet fixed what it took your hero 8 years to destroy.

    Hows he going to pay for it. Allowing the tax cuts your idiots gave to their rich buddies to expire is a great start.

  24. stopher2475 says:

    “I think the Iraqi people are already a lot better off and 10 years from now it will be undebatably obvious they are way better off.”

    There’s at least a half million dead people that might disagree with you.

  25. Tim says:

    Nope. Not a state of the union speach. Just a speech addressing congress televized like it was a state of the union.

  26. Paddy-O says:

    For some perspective:

    “First, Obama’s 63 percent approval level is about the same as the average of all presidents (62 percent) going back to 1968 during their first month in office. Barack Obama’s “disapproval,” at 24 percent, however, is slightly higher than the average of the other presidents (16%).”

  27. Olo Baggins of Bywater says:

    Tim, the difference was……what?

    smittybc, every SotU is like that. All of them. The Repub response for this one, however, made me want to puke.
    http://youtube.com/watch?v=X27UIt0RuMw

    Jindal/Palin 2012!

  28. Uncle Patso says:

    # 42 HMeyers said, in part:

    “I want the USA to go bankrupt so the faster we get to that bridge so we can overcome it the better.”

    Are you nuts? Or on drugs? To paraphrase Larry Niven, people DIE in bankruptcies. Do you want us all living in mud huts with dirt floors? Brother, I once spent some time living in a mud hut (okay, a two-room adobe house) with a dirt floor, during a winter that hit 20 below and let me tell you: I DIDN’T LIKE IT! (If adobe weren’t such good insulation, I probably would have frozen to death.) I don’t think you would like it either.

    He further added:
    “I think the USA is a great country and in order to solve the problems we have, we have to reach a point where things must be fixed.”

    Believe me, brother, we’re there NOW.

    – – – – –

    # 54 smittybc said, in part:

    “We would need massive economic growth just to keep up with the spending, and that growth (if it even comes) will be hobbled by tax increases coming next year.”

    As Rachel Maddow pointed out, those whose income >= $250K/yr. “will go back to the tax rates they had during Clinton’s administration, when they did very well.” (Remember “irrational exuberance?”)

  29. MikeN says:

    I’d like him to explain how not investing in alternative energy caused this crisis.

  30. Mr. Fusion says:

    #55, smitty,

    Weren’t you part of that 22% who approved of the job Bush was doing?

    Get out of the way so a real American can fix the country.


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