State of the Union Address

Anyone watching?

What's up with Biden's Left Eye?

Boehner's face is hilarious.

And not just because it's orange.

Man, Boehner looks like he is sleeping.

I was watching at the gym, got bored, read Clash of Kings instead.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/completely-selfabsorbed-obama-gets-up-and-just-tal,31272/

Better with audio (and thumbnail):

Can't wait to see what SNL does with that.

And, as I was just reminded, this response was pre-recorded. And presumably the best response they had.

So, uh...how was it?

Has the GOP ever done an effective counter speech to President Obama's State of the Union Address?

You read Clash of Kings at the gym?

..And to my shame, I'm wrong.
The Spanish version* was pre-recorded, the english version was live.

So yeah, that was unvarnished Rubio for all the world to see. I'm looking forward to the Primary debates already.

Haven't seen a video of Rand's response yet, since I'm not sure I have enough booze in the house and I have to go to work tommorrow.

* Apparently the Spanish one was fairly well done. Just, y'know, dumb.

TRRST FIST BUMP

Wait, so the GOP and the Tea Party had separate responses?

Fuck yeah dude. Kindle changed my life.

Who was Obama trolling there?

I haven't seen the other one yet, but it wouldn't be the first time. Last time wasn't it Bachmann's really strange thing where she was talking to a webcam off in a corner so the non webcam version looked like she refused to glance in your direction?

I think they range from boring, all the way to Jindal's whatever the fuck that was. They have no active charismatic speakers, and that makes their basic message of "... nuh uh!" even less interesting.

I guess his thirst wasn't legitimate

The response is also tough because its pre-written, and thus not much of an actual response. As a result you're stuck with vague pablum about principles, which is what Rubio offered. Contrast w presidents somewhat specific proposals.

Rubio's "only lurch left was for water" - Gibbs on MSNBC.

It's really odd how the SOTU response being pre-recorded to air immediately following has been baked in. I'd think it'd be better tribal gamesmanship for the response to air the next day to better slapfight the actual speech, and to cut down on amusing animated gifs.

Drastic: there's virtually no chance of drawing an audience if you do it the day after. At least in theory this way you have a few people tuning in.

I glanced through a transcript of Rubio's speech. If you didn't know who delivered it, you wouldn't be able to distinguish it from a Romney campaign speech. NEW IDEAS!

Yeah, the audience numbers thing is part of it. But you have to figure SOTUing in general is mostly the politically-interested eyeballs already and we're past the days of people watching because there were only 3 channels and you might as well because the Love Boat or whatever (it's exciting and new, just like GOP ideas!) will resume airing afterwards. So the number of eyeballs that'd tune into a day-later response would be lower, but perhaps not dramatically lower enough to offset the advantages of crafting something that would work around whatever the malcontented blogs and commentaries and whatnot are on about and what seems to have the most traction, as opposed to just throwing We're Not Them platitudes at the wall.

But that demographic analysis is performed from out of my gluteal region, so.

You'd think they would have people watching the debate preparing an actual rebuttal to the adress, like a team of writers putting together a good counter argument.

Your starting point is that such a response would not get network airtime; they're not going to interrupt prime time programming for anyone who's not POTUS. So you're definitely going to get a lot less people watching.

I heard someone say (MSNBC I think) that the seating is first come first served, so that several people got there early to get aisle seats. That can't be true, right?

I think in my adult life I have heard (from start to finish) maybe 3-4 SOTU speeches. They just reek of campaign promises that will never be fulfilled with the president (whoever it may be) naming off great things that will never come to pass. I also despise the applause every 5 minutes.

And apparently the speech was so good that the only banter on here is about the GOP follow up speech.

It looks like he's grabbing a rocks glass. It's also really small, or Rubio is a giant. Who pours a glass of water into those?

SOTU right after an election is always pretty meh. It sounds like campaign speak because right after a campaign it pretty much is. "Elect me and I will try to do X" followed a few months later by "No seriously, I want to do those things I just said I wanted to do"

About the only oddity was that he wants to raise the minimum wage, and the GOP has already told him to go fuck himself about it.

Well, there's also been some passive-aggressive meta-commentary. Apparently.

Your AV sure fits you. :)

Pretty much what Kildorn said. SOTU speechs are all about visuals. I must be fun for a speechwriter to craft an applause line that forces the opposing side to reluctantly applaud or sit on their hands and look like a dick for not applauding.

The most memorable SOTU moments are breaches of protocol, like Joe "You Lie!" Wilson or when it contains appalling misinformation that eventually lead to false justification to take the country to war.

Otherwise, yeah all optics -

It's one of them tiny tiny plastic bottles of water so you can litter twice as much or just out of habit not need.

Though this was apparently much need

The Onion nails it as usual.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/rich-white-people-get-latino-guy-to-do-some-work-f,31285/

Is there a good YouTube clip of Obama saying anything witty or inspirational or something he hasn't already said in the past four years?