The SOTU speech

Well it was a fine speech....Wish he'd given it last year.

Despite his detractors, the President showed he still has class.

I'm curious about the healthcare tax cut...it sounds dubious.

Porkbusters!! YAY! :)

The energy policy got all kinds of headlines, but is really a continuation of his policies of the last 8 years, which have been far more eco-friendly than he gets credit for. A lot of these things are only coming to fruition now as the technologuies for cellulosic ethanol and thermaldepolymerization as well as non-toxi batteries are only maturing now.



On the war, he gave a very good overview of the situation and explained the factional fighting between Sunni and Shia, and the dangers the extremists of both groups represent. This is a basic point often overlooked in news coverage and is important to understanding the situation. Like the "surge" I think it should have been done a year ago, but most observations of his critics, this observation is made with 20/20 hindsight.


Channel flipping, I watched the end on FOX because they stopped talking and turned the sound up, so we got to hear the unscripted banter between the President and the various Congresscritters, which was quite interesting. It was cool to hear members of the CBC come up and thank him for mentioning Darfur, and he made a real effort to sign the program books of as many Democratic congresspeople at he could, that was suprising. Despite a 20% approval rating a presidential signature still has cache'on eBay I supose. :)

I think it was his best SOTU speech,he certainly came off better than he did the other day and he leaves me with some hope that whatever else comes, he's not going to go wobbly on Iraq.


UPDATES: I'm curious about the healthcare tax cut...it sounds dubious.

Actually, now that I've heard more about it it sounds pretty decent. See here and here.

The Civillian Reserve Corps idea caused me some pause but it is better explained here. I'm still not sure how I feel about this...it is essentially a colonial office...something that a republic does not need. Of course, the millitary can't be building sewers and infrastructure...Seabees notwithstanding so it will help. Like everything else here I fear it may be a year or 2 late.

Regards my junior Seanators response, Via Instapundit, comes this humorous take on what he SHOULD have said....and the one odd gaffe in his response, the idea that a majority of the military opposes the war, is analyzed over here.