{"id":4736,"date":"2006-02-01T20:59:15","date_gmt":"2006-02-01T20:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=4736"},"modified":"2025-09-24T03:53:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T03:53:05","slug":"post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=4736","title":{"rendered":"The State of the Union"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time since 2002 I actually watched the President’s SOTU speech. <\/p>\n

I thought it was excellent. <\/p>\n

But then, I believe in the Wilsonian principles his foreign policy is based on. And I liked the broad strokes of his domestic policy plans. <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I watched it on NBC and they (Williams and Russert) declared all the initiatives dead within four minutes of the speech ending!<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
My mistake for not watching it on CNN or Fox. But i wasn’t the only person to take note of this. <\/div>\n
                                                          ____________<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Ann Althouse is a law professor at the University of Wisconsin, with a very popular blog. I’ve like her writings on legal matters (there’s a link to her weblog on the right side of my journal). I don’t agree with everything she writes, but Alhouse is very fair-minded. Here’s her comments on the SOTU speech and NBC:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
"A nice, vigorous speech. Full of optimism and courage. Ack! Now the NBC commentators come on and talk first about the "deep divisions" in the room. The Republicans applauded a lot more than the Democrats. Isn’t that disturbing? "We just plain disagree on every fundamental issue that is confronting this country," Tim Russert says in a dire tone. What can Bush get done? Very little! Hey, forget your damned optimism and get depressed fast, people.<\/span>
Enough for me. I’m switching over the the TiVo’d "American Idol.""<\/div>\n
                                                             __________<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
As I said, I thought the speech was pretty good, but since my opinion is worth what you paid to read it, here are some other opinions. The NY Times  The State of Energy – New York Times<\/a> of course very predictable ("woefully insufficient", etc). Washington Post  Altered State<\/a>, a bit more sanguine.<\/div>\n

Here’s a commentary on National Review online, making some obvious points about the media  Tim Graham on SOTU on National Review Online<\/a><\/p>\n

And comments by Taranto on the free Wall Street Journal opinion siteOpinionJournal – Best of the Web Today<\/a>. I loved his unearthing today an old Anthony Lewis (former big cheese on the NY Times op ed page) column slicing and dicing  Reagan – and of course Lewis proven completely wrong by history.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the first time since 2002 I actually watched the President’s SOTU speech. I thought it was excellent. But then, I believe in the Wilsonian principles his foreign policy is based on. And I liked the broad strokes of his domestic policy plans. I watched it on NBC and they (Williams and Russert) declared all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4736"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9817,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4736\/revisions\/9817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}