Biden’s SOTU
Commenter “AesopFan” managed to watch the speech and has this summary.
I haven’t watched the speech, have only read a few excerpts, and find I’m not even interested in commentary about it. That’s a new low point of interest for me. Why should I care what Biden’s script du jour says? Why should I care how well or poorly he reads it? Everything he’s actually done so far, and most of what he’s said as well, has been awful. His decline is obvious, physically and cognitively, and I would add “morally” if I thought he’d ever had much moral sense to begin with.
There was a conversation last night in the comments of this blog that also mentioned the German word “Fremdschamen”:
That’s the German word for feeling embarrassment for someone else. That’s what I feel when I listen to Biden speak. I hate that feeling so I will not watch.
A wonderful word, and apropos. As much as I detest Biden, and as much as I think his own naked ambition was responsible for this presidential run and no one had to twist his arm, I also feel considerable Fremdschamen when I watch him. It’s a gut thing.
Kamala, having tried to correct Biden’s confusion of Iranians and Ukrainians, has apparently stated that he did a spectacular job during his worthless speech, although AOC was less impressed. On the other hand, Kamala is the same person who famously stated that “it is time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day”, as well as explaining, recently on the radio, that the conflict in Ukraine involves a bigger country, a powerful country, invading a smaller country, and “that is wrong”. What must intelligent foreigners make of a country run by a senile buffoon, a vacuous hyena, and a corrupt octogenarian who stood behind Biden last night gesturing and gesticulating in a very odd and inappropriate manner over his comment about “burn pits”?
Biden ah shanda far di goyim…
shander bander—einer a kaporah auf an anderer
Put him on the shand klutz!!!!!
A better German word for SOTU is
adtraumtanzler
It describes the entire world of support for the criminal Biden cartel.
I also have no desire to watch such a display. It could only serve to infuriate me and make me cringe. And cringe not just because of Biden, but also because of the often bizarre behavior of clueless gerontocrats like Nancy Pelosi, peculiar facial reactions and the like.
But in fairness I don’t recall ever watching any State of the Union address all the way through. I generally prefer to watch clips and read analysis after the fact assuming anything noteworthy was said at all. Historically SOTU speeches seemed like fairly dull affairs anyway. But in the chaos of the Biden era, I really don’t want to watch.
A decent summary by AesopFan. Though I believe Intel is building in Ohio, not Iowa.
I thought the SOTU was very Clintonesque with the laundry lists of “I’m from the government and I’m here to solve your problems” happy talk. My favorite was solving the nation’s mental health problems. Sure. A therapist and a bottle of anti-depressants in every pot?
As Mike K and others have mentioned (and I saw an image of a Times Square electronic billboard to this effect today as well), this was Biden’s chance to pivot on his catastrophic energy policies and he didn’t budge. No surprise. I certainly didn’t expect him to take responsibility or apologize for those policies, but I was hoping he would pivot because Putin is bad or some pretext.
new Biden word:
Tangenger
as in Tangenger rights
As Mike K and others have mentioned (and I saw an image of a Times Square electronic billboard to this effect today as well), this was Biden’s chance to pivot on his catastrophic energy policies and he didn’t budge.
That’s an industry where executives and their affiliated law firms tend to be Republican. A wag I run across in these fora offers this: Democrats don’t care about anything other than injuring their opponents.
The only reason for watching such a performance (and thanks to AesopFan for doing it) is to see if there will be any major policy change announcements. The only one was on funding the police, but as it was tied to the gun control agenda, that did no good for either his left flank or his right.
Reading the speech as it’s better to see every word thanhearing and missing its context.
End of year deficit will be half, (not if every person was taxed out of their socks) Then says it will go down by a Trillion dollars,
Lots of class warfare
Judge Ketanji BrownJackson isn’t a top legal mind (she is a Marxist at heart)
And I would bet Beau wasn’t ever around a burn pit
I too had/have no interest. Some years I’ve been curious due to a specific topic, or a position a particular President is in, but in general I find it very embarrassing. No matter which party is in the Executive Branch it typically devolves to the Executive’s Party clapping like seals at meaningless platitudes. It is just so incongruous with what our Federal Government is supposed to be, and how it is supposed to be run.
Please, like the Oscars and the Olympics, let’s let this mid-20th century “tradition” fade quickly into the annals of history and get back to the way it used to be done; a dashed off letter carried to Congress.
I didn’t watch, but I admit to tuning in when I saw Rekieta Law doing a MST3K commentary of it. It was exactly the moment Biden tried to walk back “defund the police”. It was a bone for Republicans that he will toss into his federal budget along with a bunch of progressive garbage. The obvious implied threat is if you don’t pass his budget, then you want to defund the police. He learned nothing from his failed attempt to call things infrastructure. He’s a lame duck. My total viewing time was about 2 min. I expect his only remaining political win before midterms will be his SCOTUS pick.
I watched about a half hour of it. Except for the “Iranian” gaffe, he did better then I expected. Of course is was all lies and lefty ideas, most of which will not happen. The next six months will see either attempts to hide the Democrats’ agenda or to claim the election is rigged. The HR-1 stuff may be the theme and racism the argument. I doubt that will work but they may be too far out on that limb to saw it off.
Manchin sitting with the Repubs might be a warning shot at “the Squad” to cool off on harassing him.
I was really hoping for an end to the “mandatory masks in federal buildings” edict.
Biden is being accused of plagiarism… again. Wait for it… Biden’s script writers plagerized a line from one of Trump’s SOTU addresses. OK, it’s not an exact word for word repeat but its awfully close.
Judge for yourself,
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/biden-plagiarized-trump/
Y’all must be mistaken. My Democrat acquaintances tell me Biden “knocked it out of the park,” etc., and that they’re SO GLAD there’s a decent man in the White House now. And isn’t it awful that Trump caused Putin to invade Ukraine?
For some reason my brain keeps scrambling SOTU into STFU.
@ Geoffrey – it wouldn’t be a Biden speech if he didn’t plagiarize something.
However, I’m a little concerned that the speech-writers threw it in.
And that (obviously) no one thought it sounded familiar and checked.
I wonder if Politifact is on the case yet?
Sounded pretty close to me, but Trump’s phrasing was better, rhetorically speaking.
And the delivery was much less fremdschämenlich.
Trump: “The state of our union is strong because our people are strong.”
Biden: “…to report on the state of the nation, state of the union. And my report is this. The state of the union is strong because you, the American people, are strong.”
FWIW, the remarks here are NOT “as delivered,” but are what he should have said.
“One small step for man….” sort of thing.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/03/01/remarks-of-president-joe-biden-state-of-the-union-address-as-delivered/
The headline has it more correcter.
“Remarks of President Joe Biden – State of the Union Address As Prepared for Delivery”
Who are you going to believe: the text or your lyin’ ears?
TEXT (it’s not a transcript): “Putin may circle Kyiv with tanks, but he will never gain the hearts and souls of the Ukrainian people.”
The text left out a couple of sentences I remember distinctly, thus confirming my intuition that he mangled the sense of them because he was off-script.
He used “look” and “folks” repeatedly as interjections; none of those are in the text.
He repeated “crystal clear” several times; the text, only once.
@ TommyJay > yes, Intel is going to build in Ohio, not Iowa.
What can I say? Biden’s typos are contagious! But, hey – they both have four letters.
Diplomad pointed out only mention of China once and as a economic competitor.
Last year the White House was documenting every word, a couple speeches ago the inserted a preamble he never said, now fully believing Aesop they are editing the speeches, and inserting or removing words is editing.
Dementia usually exacerbates existing personality issues. Some get worse, some not.
But in Biden’s case, can it be he was so crooked and so stupid and so meanspirited that there’s no room to get worse?
I get the German word for pity–or a special case–watching the guy, but it’s still infuriating what he’s trying to do to us, even if he doesn’t know it.
Skip: thanks for the reminder about Diplomad. Everyone should check out his posts on Ukraine and the SOTU address:
https://thediplomad.blogspot.com/
Especially this one, from February 24:
https://thediplomad.blogspot.com/2022/02/biden-disaster-biden-disaster-biden.html
Glad to see he’s active again. Hope he keeps it up.
(And no, I didn’t watch Biden’s speech.)
I suspect that when all is said and done, EVERYTHING is intended to be a MASSIVE distraction, whether it is the SOTU, or the war in Ukraine, or January 6, or inflation, or the southern border, or Afghanistan, or the supply chain, or the markets. Or—especially—Covid. Or Trump.
Distraction from what?
Easy. The step-by-step disestablishment, IOW planned collapse, of “The Big Satan” (by “Biden”);
AND the step-by-step destruction of “The Little Satan” (by “Biden” and friends)….
“Perfidy in Vienna? Or the Madness of Slow Joe?”
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/03/perfidy-in-vienna-or-the-madness-of-slow-joe.php
The question is whether those who supported “Biden” will ever wake up to the carnage, chaos, terror and destruction for which they are responsible….though I admit this is not really a fair assessment, since “he” would have “won” anyway…whether they had they voted for “him” or not.
Nonetheless…
I don’t think I’ve EVER watched a State of the Union address, because I assume that they’ll inevitably be a “Yay for our side” speech. People who’ve spent their lives running for office will tend to keep doing so even when they’ve actually got the job.
I don’t think I’ve EVER watched a State of the Union address, because I assume that they’ll inevitably be a “Yay for our side” speech. People who’ve spent their lives running for office will tend to keep doing so even when they’ve actually got the job.
Aye. They could fulfill the constitutional obligation by sending a written statement to Congress each year, as was done between 1800 and 1913.
You can sort our presidents into categories according to their worklife outside politics:
1. Truncated / little of interest: Biden, Obama, Clinton, Johnson, Kennedy.
2. Modest / little of interest: Ford, Nixon, Roosevelt
3. Extensive, earned a living: Bush II, Reagan, Carter, Truman, Coolidge, Harding
4. Accomplished (to varying a degrees): Trump, Bush I, Eisenhower, Hoover, Wilson
We should not have category 1 at any level of government. Category 2 is less troublesome; if we have those it should be because they occupied offices at several levels of government with a decade in each.
Barry: “The question is whether those who supported “Biden” will ever wake up to the carnage, chaos, terror and destruction for which they are responsible.”
No, they won’t. See e.g. what Francis Fukuyama has to say in this roundtable discussion with Niall Ferguson and Walter Russell Mead:
https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/russias-war-on-ukraine-a-roundtable?s=r
Fukuyama is a Voice of the Blob. He thinks Biden’s doing a heckuva job. Sorry–make that a “magnificent job”.
According to the Blob, Trump was soft on Russia. Here’s Edward Luce, U.S.-based editor for the Financial Times and another member of the Blob:
https://twitter.com/EdwardGLuce/status/1499383660717522944?cxt=HHwWgIC-8dnf8M4pAAAA
Get it? The reason Putin didn’t make his move while Trump was in office was because Trump was giving him everything he wanted.
So be of good cheer. Even as we post, leading lights of the Blob are convening for a very serious conference at the Baltic Defense College in Tartu, Estonia:
https://twitter.com/BALTDEFCOL
https://twitter.com/hashtag/RUSCONF22?src=hashtag_click
Position papers, hashtags, and Powerpoints. That ought to stop Putin.
Fukuyama is a Voice of the Blob. He thinks Biden’s doing a heckuva job. Sorry–make that a “magnificent job”
I’ve always been skeptical of Fukuyama. Going to have to write him off completely.
This year’s classic SOTU photo showing Biden with Harris and Pelosi in the background is the perfect illustration of Robert Conquest’s third law of politics:
Thanks Hubert.
Fascinating how Fukuyama backed down pretty quickly after being confronted with certain “inconvenient” truths by Ferguson and Meade. Though he still was determined to get in some pathetic pokes at Trump, of tremendous importance to his sense of self, no doubt. (His next book really should be “The End of Good Judgment: An Autobiography”…)
Also for the links… I have a very soft spot for Estonia, alas…for its determination, its creativity, its music, of course its people and their innovation—well, all kinds of things. I had the very good fortune to visit, if only once. As the interview that Neo posted several days back reveals, they have a pretty good idea of what’s coming down the pike (or across the Narva) unless something can be done quickly to stop—no, not “the madness” but—the calculated and brutal reconquest of empire. (Though, who knows, maybe this conference will help(!)—if only by showing that they are not cowering, that life goes on. That scholars and experts continue to come, discuss, fraternize….)
– – – – – – – – – –
As for anyone wondering why “Biden” seems unable to cut Russia loose entirely, here’s something that, if accurate, tells us—REMINDS us—of “Biden”‘s TRUE priorities, though to be sure, “he” has many of those, most (if not all) at the “contemptible” end of the spectrum:
“Amid Ukraine crisis, Biden partnering with Russia to revive Iran deal, thwart US opponents…;
“Administration has held secret talks with Russians to preempt future Trump-like exit from accord, experts and former officials warn.”—
https://justthenews.com/government/security/amid-ukraine-crisis-biden-partnering-russia-revive-iran-nuclear-deal
(And so confabulating with…yes, that’s right!…Guess one can’t talk all the time about purchasing oil…
…all of which is entirely consistent with the “Perfidy in Vienna” link above:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/03/perfidy-in-vienna-or-the-madness-of-slow-joe.php
…and segues not too badly with the following (not that THIS is anything new, mind you, but still):
“Saudi Crown Prince: We see Israel as a possible ally”—
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/323252
…Heck, even Erdogan is beginning to act—somewhat—like a “mensch” (though I wouldn’t want to bet on how long that’ll last).
Having said all this, to paraphrase Ecclesiastes: “All is speculation”…
I watched the whole thing, and I thought Biden did spectacularly well considering how bad he often is. If you are on the Left/Democrats side, it would have given you hope that he might be able to last through the next three years. I don’t know what they pumped into him, but it worked – the thing I’m watching for is how long it takes before he is out and about again….I’m sure whatever they do to him takes a toll.
(as an aside, the most entertaining thing for me was Nancy’s goofy look throughout – she definitely had a few before the speech. I’d imagine they were all so nervous that Biden wouldn’t make it through, and so relieved when he did).
But he delivered without any major stumbling. Critics can pick the hypocrisy of the speech, and flaws, but look at it from his side’s point of view….he really did “knock it out of the park” as commenter Mac noted his Democrat friends were saying, by not spectacularly failing.
Will it make a difference, especially by November? I doubt it in a positive way: the speech will soon be forgotten by anyone who actually believed it, but, on the negative side, may resonate with the hard Left that Biden is going to betray them.
Normally come election time, the Left in particular will close ranks and present a united front. This time, I’m not so sure. If the election looks to be a total shellacking, and with so many old-guard Octogenarians inevitably at the end of their careers, this would be a good time for the Squad and the rest of the hard-Left to cement control over the remaining rump of the Party.
However it pans out, 2022 is shaping up to be a most interesting year.
Intel is going to build in Ohio, not Iowa.
What can I say? Biden’s typos are contagious! But, hey – they both have four letters. @AF 3:31
Maybe they will end up building in in OhIowa!