Legal Commentary

Let's watch the State of the Union.

8:06 Central Time. The room looks shabby. Why is that? Here's the President. Wan applause. Kissy faces. Biden! He's looking lanky and elderly. Michelle is swathed in ? what color purple would you say that is? Eggplant? Aubergine?

8:09. Nancy's in lilac. Purple is the color... if you want to appeal to all the reds and blues of America. Obama's got a red and white ? peppermint ? striped tie, so I take it he means to reach out to conservatives. But how? They say he's going to ask for the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, but that can't please conservatives. It can't please the Democrats too much either, really ? can it? ? as they look toward the fall elections.

8:14. The economy sucks. But it could be worse. Obama reads the letters we write him. Letters from children. They want us to set aside partisanship. The people are resilient. As so, "I have never been more hopeful about America's future than I am tonight." First applause line.

8:19. If there's one thing that unites us, it's that we all hated the bank bailout. He talks about the bank fee, which he characterizes as a way of recovering the part of the bailout that has not yet been paid back. I've never understood that, and I don't understand it now. And it's hardly bipartisan, is it?

8:23. He's making big claims about having cut taxes and creating huge numbers of jobs. I don't believe it, but Obama is telling me that I should talk to some small business owner in Phoenix whose name I didn't quite catch. Didn't give the phone number though.

8:26. Small businesses are good. (Come on, talk to them.) Big business sucks though. We want to help small business grow... so it can become big business and then we can hate it.

8:29. China has better trains.

8:31. Biden was smiling a toothy grin but now he's all frowny-face and I'm afraid he's going to cry. Is it because other countries are better than we are? Did Obama call us losers?

8:33. It's time to get serious about solving problems. Like, before? We were clowning around.

8:35. Nuclear power plants! Off-shore oil-drilling! Yay! Really? It's mixed in with a lot of "clean energy" and "climate" talk.

8:38. Let's export more stuff.

8:41. Hey, kids! Do your homework!

8:42. $10,000 in tax credits for college (for the whole 4 years?). And you'll only have to pay 10% of your income, at the most, to pay back your college loans. After 20 years of that, any remaining debt is forgiven.

8:44. Why the hell did I get bogged down in health care reform!?

8:45. Michelle. Oh, my! What does that expression on her face mean? I get a chill and imagine she hates him. I'll go back and get a photograph of this later.

8:47. Obama takes his "share" of the blame.

8:49. We're "in a fiscal hole."  Here's the part about freezing spending.

8:55. Were they laughing at him?

8:56. "Let's try common sense. A novel concept." A laugh line that is a confession of past incompetence.

8:57. He's bitching about the Supreme Court ? about the Citizens United case ? while the Justices are sitting right in front of him. They all look pretty poker-faced, except Samuel Alito who mouths some words. I'll have to go back and try to lip read that. 

[MORE TO COME]

Full post as published by Althouse on January 27, 2010 (boomark / email).