I’m watching the State of the Union with a healthy Tivo delay, but without playing the drinking game, so I might as well make some commentary. I expect a lot of it to be posturing that won’t necessarily be followed through, as many news organizations have shown in checking up on the promises from the 2006 State of the Union Address. But on with the show…
- This must be a fun gig for cameramen, scanning the audience for Democrats with particularly bemused expressions.
- Budget: This reminds me of someone maxing out their credit card and then deciding they really ought to pay it off.
- Health care: Leveling the tax playing field would be a good first step; having to buy insurance on the open market with taxed money is a real double blow.
- Guest worker program: This is just reality catching up; this nation can’t function without additional labor, much less have any hope of funding social security.
- Energy: One point for mentioning Plug-In Hybrid Cars.
- Iraq: It seems clear that this is nothing but a long haul now. If we’re sending additional troops, though, how many additional Iraqis are going to come forward to take control of their country’s destiny?
- Troops: +92,000?! No wonder Rumsfeld and his “smaller, leaner” vision finally were shown the door!
- Darfur: “Awaken the conscience of the world” sounds like lip service.
- 49 minutes and 62 applause interruptions according to NBC
That’s it; I don’t think the hour of post-speech analysis and rebuttals will be of much interest. More interesting is the number of comments the Fark thread on the address is getting; even if it degrades into the usual flamewar, at least people are thinking about politics tonight.
del.icio.us/mbotos
