SOTU time

Some pre-game thoughts on the big speech tonight.

Will Obama say the state of the union is 'strong'? If he doesn't wouldn't that reflect on him after two years? Bush is a little dot in the rear view now.

Will O talk about the disintegration of the Middle East and South Asia? Does that reflect on Hillary?

Will he try to craftily keep the Tucson right wing hate meme alive, or condemn the perpetrators?

How many times will he say "let me be clear"? Put me down for two. And here we go...

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Will the 'date night' (Congressmen of different parties sitting together instead on their 'sides') produce the image of a full blown standing O for O? Let's see if the mainstreamers report it that way.

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Obama introduces Boehner-- did Biden just mouth " BFD"?

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It's refreshing not to see Pelosi smiling in the background while the president talks about keeping the Republicans from using the car they stole the keys to, er, I mean getting along for a more perfect union.

And is it already apparent that the clapping has been minimized? If so, that's a good thing.

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He just said he wanted to remove the subsidies for oil companies, as gas moves towards 3 bucks in a down economy. That was his first stab at reducing the deficit, apparently.

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Education- a good analogy between Super Bowl and science fair. Think he's used it before. Then he said we needed an investment of 100K more dues paying teachers. Finally, he pushed for investments for the kids of illegal aliens, and amnesty. More or less.

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Now O is calling for investments in infrastructure, which we thought was part of the Stimulus (so far the only cuts mentioned have been removing the subsidies to oil companies). Now he's talking about reducing the corporate tax code without reducing the deficit. They used to call that smoke and mirrors in the old days.

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Obama keeps acting like his review of government regulations is something he came up with. It's mandated every decade. Don't expect much "change".

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He's in health care mode now. Still nothing about Iraq or Afghanistan. You know, the wars.

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The worst of the recession is over! Do the unemployed feel better now?

And OK, this five-year freeze is probably not going to happen. It's probably a trojan horse designed to placate the GOP without actually getting rid of things. Besides, we must invest! Invest! Invest!

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Now we are allowed to discuss malpractice reform in health care. And by golly, we can't have grandma living and dying on the Dow Jones, even if nobody has ever proposed such a thing, ever.

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Tax increases on the rich! Tax increases in the rich! It's an investment in America, you tightwad scrooge capitalist bastards.

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And now the big government president is yukking it up about the bloated big government, created by liberals. He may have a legitimate carrot to the right with this re-organization of government proposal, but he's talked like this before. Remember, three days online for all bills before his signature? Recovery.gov? An up and down review of all programs? Just words.

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Foreign policy time. Violence is down in Iraq (except for all those suicide attacks of late). But we are leaving anyway (applause). And the Tollybon is on the run or something, and we're getting the heck out of dodge there, too (applause). We will never waiver, bend and we will defeat the bad Muslims, at least while we are still there, until we leave. And Iran, we are kicking ass there! We are shaping a world of peace all over the place despite the news reports of chaos in Tunisia, protests in Egypt, and as Lebanon falls into the hands of Nasrallah. Otherwise, the world is fine.

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"Nobody will be prevented from serving the country they love because of who they love." Unless they fail the ASVAB.

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Oh no, Boehner is crying again.

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Shout out to the guy who helped save the Chilean miners. "We do big things". Yes we do--and for most of our history people have done it without a government program. I'm not sure Obama isn't trying to use the 'big things' analogy to explain his government's approach.

But he did say the union was strong, and he didn't say "let me be clear" even once.

MORE 1/25/11

What exactly is Sputnik? I listened to the speech and it didn't really connect. Back when Sputnik was Sputnik we were competing to get into space and reach the Moon, cheered on by President Kennedy. But that was tangible--the Moon. Something everyone could see. This Sputnik appears to be green energy of some sort, perhaps curly light bulbs for GE at the behest of Immelt. Or electric cars and a closing down of coal mines, even though we'll need much more electricity. It just seems more ambiguous.

Also, notice Obama said nothing of significance about global warming. With Browner leaving and another cold winter across America, they've wisely punted.