Someone on Twitter—sorry, I don't remember who—complained that Joe Biden's speech tonight was a laundry list, the least effective type of speech there is. I'm not so sure about that. I remember all those years of Bill Clinton giving long, laundry-list SOTUs and getting panned by the national press. But the public loved them. I'll bet Biden's version gets pretty good marks too.
In any case, the speech was a laundry list, which is hardly surprising since Biden has a ton of stuff he's proposing these days. And it was fine. Biden ad libbed a few lines here and there to good effect, and there were no miscues or—God forbid—gaffes. It was a workmanlike speech and he delivered it efficiently.
Anyway, that's about it. Biden outlined all the stuff he's been talking about for the past couple of months and he did it without insulting anyone or becoming the face that launched a thousand fact checkers. He stayed focused on jobs, jobs, and more jobs, and promised to build stuff in America instead of China, which I'm sure went over well.
It was, I suppose, a fairly boring speech, but that seems to be Biden's brand these days. After four years of Donald Trump, boring is good. Right?
If it was a laundry list, it was a Sanders / AOC laundry list, but he made it seem like just sympathetic reasonable middle-of-the-road Joe. It was brilliant.
And there were a few non-laundry-list items in there, like implicitly (but never explicitly) painting Republicans as pro-mass-murder, pro-economic-royalism, and pro-hostile-foreign-autocrat. It was very smooth, but CNN's camera people, at least, noticed.
It may have seemed merely workmanlike, but I think it was considerably more clever.
Hostile foreign autocrat??? They let Russians fly over US air space for 4 years.
[ Does anyone know what this comment means? Leave interpretations below. ]
Republicans love "their" foreigners.....Russia, Israel, KSA, China good. North America and Europe bad.
It means covfefe.
I think he is babbling about the Open Skies Treaty with Russia. It was signed in 1992 and it allowed each state-party to conduct short-notice, unarmed, reconnaissance flights over the others' entire territories to collect data on military forces and activities. Trump and Pompeo killed it last year.
At Putie's request, but they were still flying over.
Yes this is what I think the babble is referring to as well.
You see this on the day MAGA once more became My Attorney Got Arrested?
It's too easy to underestimate the guy. Especially since his press conference, which I caught on radio, not tv, I've become increasingly convinced that he's a much more cagey and more subtle politician than he's generally been given credit for, and actually a more systematic thinker, too.
He said at that press conference that he knows Mitch and Mitch knows him, and he sure does know McConnell and the mugwump caucus. Somehow, in the maneuvering around the relief bill, it just happened that those guys put themselves exactly where Biden needed them. Same thing seems to be happening with the infrastructure bill, and maybe, seeing Tim Scott's pathetic Fox news audition, with the policing bill.
Maybe it comes from being an older generation pol, but Biden does seem to understand both what makes each individual legislator tick, and at the same time what will reach big portions of the public. And he's forcing gop legislators into the poisonous no-man's-land between, on the one hand gop primary voters and fox viewers and small-dollar donors (but I repeat myself), and on the other hand, the general-election voters. I think he's doing it very deliberately and mercilessly. As he should.
Concur
The guy has been successful at this job for close to 50 years. Give him some credit.
I'm agreeing, but how many of our sterling political reporters have been telling us he's "affable" and "gaffe-prone" and "full of empathy" and have nothing to say about the political road he's traveled or the skills and knowledge and insight he's likely to have developed?
So right, you don't start off your political life with a big upset and then navigate 30+ years as a centrist civil-rights-supporting Democrat representing the leading state for incorporations as well as duPont and that also happens to have a checkered racial history, and then being the last person a two-term president talks to on just about anything, by being a dodo.
There do seem to be plenty of districts and states where mindless yahooism can carry the day, but that's probably a story for another time.
You don't manage that if you have any principles that's for sure. But hey, the government can just print more money to pay for Joe's walking around cash. It's not like inflation is up or anything. The irony is that none of this is necessary...there's a lot of pent up demand out there.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/09/us-producer-price-index-march-2021.html
Good to see phony inflation hawks show up at the earliest possible moment. "Just ignore the past 30 years of low inflation. Look at this past month!"
100%. Not enough has been said, not nearly enough, about what an incredible competent and strategically intelligent administration he has run. It's only been 100 days but I don't know when there has been a first 100 days this solid in my lifetime. I think we may have to consider, as Altoid implies, that Biden is a g-d*mned genius.
The withdrawal of the Neera Tanden nomination will be the lede on every major newspiece about the ineffectual first 100 days of the Democrat regime.
It's really all the naysayers have.
"Biden does seem to understand both what makes each individual legislator tick,"
And this is what so many lefty commenters (elsewhere!) have lacked. I see so many rants that paint the GQP (see, I'm doing it too) as one homogenous, undistinguished population of ideology-bots. Actual politicians recognize that, although often a party will vote that way, it's made up of individuals who can be pried away from the group by discussion, argument, empathy, even (earmarks!) bribes. Rather than throwing up his hands and giving up, Biden knows how to work this knowledge.
And he's got the "No Drama" part down, much like his former boss.
Clever that he's setting it up so Manchin is part of the pressure operation on the gop senate. Manchin is farthest right of the Democratic caucus so he pulls things toward the middle, which is effective with most of the country. It frustrates the hell out of progressives, and that's what gets him the most attention. But that position is useful for Biden.
But Manchin always has the hole card of sighing regretfully and saying "my mossback friends on the republican side have left me no choice-- I have to support changing the filibuster rules." So Manchin looms as a constant threat to McConnell and all the obstructionists on the gop side.
BTW, anyone who thinks he and his family to the nth generation haven't been promised the sun, the moon, and the stars if he crosses the aisle is dreaming. But he's made clear where he caucuses, and a little frustration is worth that.
Agree, and agree with bbleh above — he is making his very ambitious liberal programs seem very middle-of the-road, and putting Republicans in the position of being opposed to good-paying jobs, education, even kids and family life.
Sen. Scott’s ‘response’ was a desperate attempt to throw out distractions from the fact that the GOP caucus is going to vote solidly against a slew of things that large majorities of Americans want. Tired old R shouting points: Deficits! Big gummint! Job-killing taxes!
Mass murder?
You might have noticed that crime was up in 2020 and continues to go up in 2021 under 'normal, boring' Joe. And the inflection point wasn't the lock downs... it was the George Floyd protests/riots/insurrections.* And it was egged on by Kamala Harris and 'the Squad' and tacitly approved of by the overwhelming number of Democrat politicians in this country.
*When a section of a major city in this country, no matter how small, declares itself autonomous and establishes and armed internal and external security force, that's a real insurrection. When 'protestors' attack a police precinct, overrun it, and burn it down, that's a real insurrection.
Crime of course is up, but I meant murder.
Violent crime has been increasing in the US since about 2014.
You are right, that was the year that Obama, pretty much freed of any restraint, indulged his black indentitarianism by touting the Ferguson shooting. Indeed Dems used it as a means of riling up there base...blacks...to turn out for mid-terms.
But last year saw an inflection, a record increase in major cities. Note I am not saying the total amount of homicides went up, but the increase was a record in many major cities. So we are talking both first and second derivatives, for those of you with some calculus.
You are either cherry picking or falling prey to the fallacy of composition, or both.
I attended two demonstrations against racist police violence. They were not riots or insurrections. I live in a small town, and like many small towns the demonstrations were noteworthy because in towns like mine we never have demonstrations that size. There were thousands more like it. What was most noteworthy about the demonstrations you describe was that they were NOT insurrections. For one of those, look to your right.
1) There is no statistical evidence that 'racist' attitudes drive police violence. Most police violence, deadly police violence, is against white males. Blacks are the subject of deadly police violence at a hire rate than their population would indicate, to a factor of slightly above 2x. However, black males commit serious violent crime at a rate of between 2 and 4 times their proportion of the population (robbery 4x, sexual assault 2x, homicide 4x) , so it is to be expected they would come into conflict situations with cops more.
2) Just because your particular demonstration was peaceful doesn't mean that all were. I gave you several examples. And after all, there were hundreds or even thousands of MAGA demonstrations (esp. if you can't not formal rallies, but 'Trump trains etc) that occured without violence. Again, might heart sank when I saw those cops abandon the 3rd (IIRC) precinct in Minneapolis -- that's how a true insurrection starts.
Strike burden of proof due diligence from the list of things you're capable of doing.
+1 no-go zone for infidels in Birmingham
How many points for acid attacks in England...a practice that has spread to the US.
The only acid attack I recall was the YIPPIES thinking they could dose the municipal water supply with blotter.
I work one mile from that autonomous zone. You have no idea what you are talking about, but keep pumping out your racist dog whistles. It's really working for you.
The stealthy shade towards Josh Hawley was good:
"I'd like to thank the Senate for voting 94 to 1 to enact the Violence against Asian Americans Act."
The 2024 Biden-Harris re-elect campaign in the face of a national unity challenge by Josh Hawley & Tulsi Gabbard just got started.
[Insert @dobermanboston macro of a Pat Buchanan headshot captioned "ALOHA!".]
How about just a 'violence against Americans act'? There really is no evidence of a true 'uptick in violence' against Asian Americans, as opposed to, maybe, some idiots saying mean things to them. There is an indication of uptick in violence in general. And since recent Asian immigrants often leave check by jowl with those most likely to commit serious violence in our society, in 'urban' settings, oh heck, near blacks, well, they might be bearing the brunt.
The whole anti-Asian violence narrative is quite cynical...but hey, the Dems are good at this sort of thing.
Heh. Do you ever provide proof of anything you say? (No 'course not. Stupid question.)
Try the NYPD anti-Asian hate crimes twitter feed for a start. Enough anecdotes are data...in fact data is nothing but a bunch of anecdotes.
Asking someone else to provide the proof for your assertions is considered the height of bad form in my circles. TL;DR: I'm not going to do your research for you -- you dig through the site where you say it exists and come back when you've got something to show us.
Was there a promise of a chicken in every pot?-)
Chickens in pots are passe'. Pot is not, though.
What about pot in chickens? Like a stuffing with cannabis? Hmm ...
Chicken stuffed with pot? Sounds foul.
He said nothing about cannabis, the one subject he missed.
The first time women outnumbered men in the iconic SOTU photo. I hope this is a trend.
It will be gone soon.
You wish. Make your own dang sandwich, we're not coming back to the kitchen ever.
+10, and LOL!
Who in their right mind would trust a woman to make a sandwich.
Some of us who don't act like a$$#oles toward the women in our lives. Or take our turn at the sandwich-making.
Two women from San Francisco, no less.
Is this what Grace Slick wanted?
She's still alive boomer, why don't you give her a call. She's probably lonely.
A Hispanic and European man died recently from the cops brutality.......but it's all about blm, that James Brown guy who tried to run over cops....society is sick.
The only thing Latinos are good for is swamping whites via immigration. No one cares when the cops kill them...heck, most of the time it's another Latino cop doing the killing.
¡NO NOS REEMPLAZARAN LOS LADINOS!
Porque me gritas, buey?
I am all Torque'd up.
But there assimilating...one Carlos Lopez just went on a shooting spree in Los Angeles, but he only killed two folks so it doesn't count. He did manage to make it down to the OC (Fullerton, where Kelley Thomas was beaten to death by cops).
I had a different reaction, I thought it was one of the best such speeches I've ever heard.
He contextualized the issues in a personal and straightforward way that was easy to relate to and understand. I've never heard an address to Congress that actually achieved this before.
It was all about the immediacy of the subject the Republican response immediately set about insulting and I immediately turned it off.
I totally concur.
What some dismiss as Biden's "laundry list," I see as a partial accounting of America's possibilities.
I agree. Instead of roasting Republicans, he spent an hour letting them steam in their own juices.
Ditto. After Biden's conversational and masterful talk with America, Scott came across as smarmy and false. Josh Marshall has a good analysis of Biden's speech and its winning style over at talkingpointsmemo.com this morning. I recommend it.
I think the idea of a DARPA for disease, and probably bioscience in general, is fantastic.
That's the NIH. Ok, the NIH is too risk averse.
Since it's not national defense, it is university based and more investigator driven.
What is needed is something like what they did in the UK to test drugs/treatments for Covid.
We'll just have to see what the proposal actually is.
Then again, the US has been launching repeated "Wars on Cancer" since at least the Nixon administration.
Today Tim Scott became president.
He gave a good speech--sounded at times that he was rebutting Trump.
Of course trying to blame Biden for Republican intransigence is utter nonsense.
Couldn’t disagree more. Not that I think any other Republican could have done any better. As I said above, Sen. Scott just repeated old GOP clichés, and pointed to imaginary squirrels. The fact is that his party has no ideas, no policies to address the real problems facing the nation, and, since 2016, no principles. I fervently hope it has no future, either, but bigotry and know-nothing is missing a dishearteningly durable feature of American politics. He could have pointed his faction in a new and constructive direction; he didn’t.
‘Know-nothing-ism’. Damn spell correct.
I thought it was a real eye-roller, myself. You can do autobiography or you can tick off the laundry list of cliche grievances, but it takes artistry to do both in the same speech. The best I can say is that he might have been trying to gain party cred for his negotiations on the policing bill.
Content aside, did anyone else think the production was weird? Camera angle from slightly below so it looked like his head was receding in the distance, and he was leaning to one side the whole time. The right side, so at least he was consistent.
I believe this is called "damning with faint praise".
Compared to an Obama SOTU speech, Biden's was weak tea, but KD is right. Biden is a very shrewd politician, and he pitched strikes all the way through his speech. He also proved that anyone who claims that his cognitive skills are failing is lying. Biden has a deep understanding of political life and how parties work and at the same time is at heart an egalitarian of the American variety, heir to FDR's vision for America. If the New Deal coalition is long dead, the ideas that it embodied are not. I think the GOP will have a hard time until the midterms, and I enjoy watching that!
Here’s a report on before/after polling: https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/28/politics/cnn-poll-biden-speech-to-congress/index.html
Biden improved on the ‘right direction/wrong direction’ question by six percentage points, to 73%. In this partisan age, I’d say that’s a successful speech.
Does that polling include CNN's Luntzhead focus group participants?
The speech was a little boring, but I suppose it's useful for Biden to lay down his markers (again) for the political junkie and pundit class to kick around. Has there ever been a State of the Union speech that mattered?
Uh, since you're asking, how're you measuring? Please be specific.
Remembered for it's rhetoric or as an inflection point for moving an agenda forward.
Uh, you mean like James Polk off-handedly mentioning thars gold in them thar hills? This sort of thing:
President Polk’s fourth state of the union address in 1848 launched a massive migration westward. In ten years, the white population of California rose from 80 to 300,000 — because the president reported that the rumors of gold in California were true.
Polk said, “The accounts of the abundance of gold in that territory are of such an extraordinary character as would scarcely command belief were they not corroborated by the authentic reports of officers in the public service who have visited the mineral district and derived the facts which they detail from personal observation.”
Or how about this little bit of doggerel dittyfying:
“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
“Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation…In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.”
YMMV, of course, but I tend to think of these and a few others as meeting your request as specified by your metrics 🙂
I was thinking about the modern era but, ok, ya got me!
I don't want a witty, urbane speech chock full of soaring platitudes and clever rhetoric.
I want an effective speech. Big difference. And on that count, judging by the poll numbers, how much he moved the needle with what group, Biden hit it out of the park.
It was nice having a President who could read prepared remarks without droning in a wooden monotone for an hour, mispronouncing and stumbling over words that made it seem like he had no clue what those words were, or had never even seen them before.
For someone who made much of his money from hosting and appearing on TV shows, Trump was amazingly incompetent at reading a Prompter.
(Then again, why should that be any different than the rest of his abilities.)
It was more than a laundry list - it was the first time I've ever heard a president assure sexual minorities that "I've got your back:.
It was also a fine demonstration - after 4+ very long years - of "when they go low, we go high". It was the speech by someone who aspires to - and in my reckoning has succeeded in - being a STATESMAN.
Americans of good will need to believe in. our Presidrnt again.