Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

Sullivan: “9.26 pm. I loves me a Democrat who gets the vital importance of small business.”

Yglesias: “Framing of progressive agenda in classic Americana terms is well-done”

“It’s time to finally slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas and give those tax breaks to companies that create jobs in the United States of America.”

I DO NOT ACCEPT SECOND PLACE FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Hopefully that will cause the heads of a few tea-baggers to explode.

Sullivan: “What I like about the speech so far is its refusal to be coopted by the old left-right gamesmanship of Washington and the FNC/RNC. He is just ignoring their narrative and reminding people of the truth that belies it.”

That’s what Obama has always tried to do, even if it does frustrate the left from time to time.

Climate bill still on the table

I love it–he is directly countering the wingnuts who don’t accept the science on climate change.

I wish he could also make disbelief in evolution an issue

Sullivan: “But I love this: clean energy is worth doing whatever you think of climate change. Plenty of conservatives should be able to support this if they could get past their partisanship and bile.”

I love it – The Republicans won’t even stand up for Tax credits for college!

WE STILL NEED HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM.
And the crowd goes wild (except the Republicans.)

“It should be clear by now that I didn’t take on health care because it would be good politics.”

We are “closer than ever” to hcr; doesn’t sound like someone giving up.

Suz, there is NOTHING Obama could propose that they would stand up for. GOP leadership has sharp shooters who will shoot out the knee caps of any Republicans who stand.

Tax credits for college. A successful education plan. Yet he isn’t going around saying he should be called “the education president.”

Gee, that health care plan doesn’t sound so scary.

“I will not walk away from these Americans and neither should the people in this chamber.” And it even reduces the deficit.

Wow, there was a huge deficit before he even walked thru the door. Who would have guessed this would have happened after a Republican administration?

Freezing government spending–shakes up the left/right dynamic but I’m not so sure it will work. Democrats already have a better record on fiscal responsibility than Republicans. Will this change the conventional wisdom?

Bipartisan fiscal commission–except Republicans want no part of this.

Benen: “Thanks, Bush, for screwing us all over.”

Sullivan: “Thank God he could explain why he had to spend in his first year – or risk an economic collapse. And I like the equation of ordinary people tightening their belts – so government should too. It’s a trivial matter, but it’s never too trivial to get rid of programs that don’t work.”

Finally he will issue an executive order. Mr Smith, there’s your sign.

538: “This is a *very* Clintonian speech. But it’s encouraging to see that Obama can speak Clinton and still sound like himself.”

i think they did stand- that was the beauty of it

Ezra Klein: “Notably, Obama did not say pass the Senate bill or amend the Senate bill. There’s no more clarity on process.”

Not the place. Most Americans don’t care this much about process. They want to hear what hcr will do for them, not process details.

this man knows the difference between power and authority.

Earmark reform so the American people can see how their money is being spent. That’s something else which should get bipartisan support.

Chuck Todd: “There’s a LOT in this speech that appears to be aimed at independents; lots of proposals various GOPers have made.” No shit–that’s what he’s been doing since he entered politics.

“No party should obstruct every single bill.”

Benen: “Trashing a Supreme Court ruling in front of the justices. Awkward.”

Never has a State of the Union speech been needed more.

Yglesias: This is a brilliant speech. Realistically won’t do any good unless senate centrists grow consciences, unemployment falls.

“All of our troops are coming home.”

538: “Obama is making a lot of arguments tonight that the WH should have been making for months now.’

I’m not so sure that the arguments are any different. It’s just that now he has the national audience. He needs to get on national television more often. Maybe they could put him on every night at 11:35 before Leno?

Going back six minutes: “”In the last year, hundreds of Al Qaeda’s fighters and affiliates, including many senior leaders, have been captured or killed — far more than in 2008.”

Markos: “President McCain would have our troops in Iraq another 10,000 years”

Eliminate “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

Chuck Todd: ” Only Bill Clinton (every SOTU) and LBJ (just one) have given SOTUs longer than 60 minutes.”

Josh Marshall: “Nelson and Lieberman sitting together in axis of weasels.”

Will recap later after I’ve had some time to review all of this and the reaction at Liberal Values

http://www.liberalvaluesblog.com

538: “Obamacare is up to 50% likelihood of passage on Intrade right now.”

I’d now give it closer to 80% at least in some form. If necessary they will push thru a scaled down bill and declare victory but the Democrats know that they cannot go into the November elections with nothing.

Sullivan: “This was the president I supported and still support and will support because he alone is calling us away from the cynicism, the ideology, the rhetorical poison, and the red-blue divide that keep us from the reform we desperately need.”

Tweety: “I forgot he was black for an hour.” Even when he says good things about Obama he sounds like an ass.

That’s Chris Mathews above–with Tweets becoming such a big thing I fear people may have forgotten his old nickname.

Ezra Klein: “Watching that speech, you would think Obama was on top of the world. That, in itself, seems like a significant accomplishment.”

Ezra: “Judging from the camera pans, the folks standing behind McDonnell are a lot more, uh, multicultural than the folks in front of him.” I wonder what Mathews thinks of the crowd.

McDonnell–is he going to go with “drill, baby, drill.” The GOP response is their typical BS.

McConnell now resorting to the terrorism card. Disgusting.