Tale of Two Responses

The official response to the President's State of the Union address was delivered by reactionary Rethug Congressman Paul Ryan (Social Darwinist - WI), whose touted "Roadmap for America's Future" would do away with Medicare and disrupt Social Security. Unfortunately for him, he came across as an earnest young funeral director, talking in solemn and almost grim terms about the future. Of course, he didn't mention the improving job numbers, corporate profits and bullish stock market -- signs that the stimulus and other Obama measures are working, albeit slowly. After watching Obama's hopeful and positive address, it was a downer watching the official Rethug response -- they truly have nothing but "cut spending and cut taxes" in their repertoire.

Since Ryan's type of right-wing rhetoric isn't enough for the unhinged base of the Rethuglican/New Confederate Party (a.k.a., teahadists), Minnesota's crackpot Rep. Michele "I See Commies" Bachmann trotted out her singular type of divisive crazy talk on the Tea Party Express web site. Her remarks were sprinkled with the usual nuttery about "America is under attack," and the lie that reform is "government-run" health care to be policed by "16,500 IRS agents." Seriously. In clips of her remarks that were shown on the news this morning, she appeared to be staring off into space while speaking. While that was attributed to having two different cameras present, it certainly captured the spacey quality of the loon from Minnesota.

State of the Union Preview

With much of the Beltway Village media distracted over which Democratic Senator will sit with which Republican Senator at tonight's State of the Union address, there's actually some serious content that President Obama is expected to touch on, namely investments in education, science and infrastructure to make the U.S. economy more robust and competitive. He's expected to support some budget cuts, but not the ham-handed cuts the Rethugs are recklessly proposing, along with tax reform/elimination of loopholes. Everyone should be on their best behavior (we'll see), although we expect the Rethugs to sit on their hands for most of the hour, except when texting their contributors or mistresses.

UPDATE: The SOTU went pretty much as expected. Some business-friendly proposals, coupled with calls for seizing our "Sputnik moment." Nice weaving of national priorities with real-life situations represented by guests in the gallery. No catcalls from the teahadists in attendance.