Mitch
Plain language, good sense, and the calm insistence that this nation remains, even now, exceptional. Undramatic--even modest--but magnificent all the same.
Excerpts:
The President did not cause the economic and fiscal crises that continue in America tonight. But he was elected on a promise to fix them, and he cannot claim that the last three years have made things anything but worse....
Contrary to the President's constant disparagement of people in business, it's one of the noblest of human pursuits. The late Steve Jobs - what a fitting name he had - created more of them than all those stimulus dollars the President borrowed and blew. Out here in Indiana, when a businessperson asks me what he can do for our state, I say 'First, make money. Be successful. If you make a profit, you'll have something left to hire someone else, and some to donate to the good causes we love....'
It's absolutely so that everyone should contribute to our national recovery, including of course the most affluent among us. There are smart ways and dumb ways to do this: the dumb way is to raise rates in a broken, grossly complex tax system, choking off growth without bringing in the revenues we need to meet our debts. The better course is to stop sending the wealthy benefits they do not need, and stop providing them so many tax preferences that distort our economy and do little or nothing to foster growth....
Republicans will speak for those who believe in the dignity and capacity of the individual citizen; who believe that government is meant to serve the people rather than supervise them; who trust Americans enough to tell them the plain truth about the fix we are in, and to lay before them a specific, credible program of change big enough to meet the emergency we are facing. "We will advance our positive suggestions with confidence, because we know that Americans are still a people born to liberty. There is nothing wrong with the state of our Union that the American people, addressed as free-born, mature citizens, cannot set right. Republicans in 2012 welcome all our countrymen to a program of renewal that rebuilds the dream for all, and makes our 'city on a hill' shine once again.
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Comments:
Oct '10
Re: Mitch
I thought it was a fantastic speech.
Sep '10
Re: Mitch
Lovely. It's been so long since the ruling party treated Americans this way, that it's almost a shock when it occurs.
Edited on January 25, 2012 at 5:03amJul '10
Re: Mitch
Gollum for President!
Good luck with that.
Sep '10
Re: Mitch
Mr. Daniels. Put that boilerplate into action!
Jan '11
Re: Mitch
Daniels must listen to the Ricochet podcasts. That lightbulb line came out of Lileks' mouth.
Dec '10
Re: Mitch
I liked the words he spoke. I thought his voice was not authoritative and his 3/4 profile seating made him look sideways at the camera, which also was weak-looking.
So it was a great speech that could have been delivered better.
Oct '10
Re: Mitch
Some people are complaining that it was boring. But you need to evaluate it in context and compare it to other state of the union responses. Has there ever been a better SOTU response?
Jun '10
Re: Mitch
Respectfully disagree, Peter.
It was merely ample.
Magnificent? Uh...no.
It should have been a rallying cry...with a live audience, especially since it was the last time there would be an official Republican response before the election. It had no fire, no passion and very little energy. It too often came across a dry lecture on accountancy. It won't be the talk around anyone's kitchen table tomorrow morning.
Re: Mitch
The modesty thing: it might not be sufficient, but it may be necessary. That SOTU was one of the more immodest speeches to be delivered by a president.
Re: Mitch
I loved the speech and was shocked to learn that he wrote it himself. There were some excellent lines, about the trickle-down government, policies of poverty, the haves and the soon-to-haves.
I also liked that he spoke to me like I was an adult.
Dec '11
Re: Mitch
I liked a lot of it -- particularly the strategic use of colloquial language like the "stimulus money he blew" and "the smart way and the dumb way" -- but overall, it would have been stronger if it had been shorter.
Jun '10
Re: Mitch
Yes. Paul Ryan's, here.
Feb '11
Re: Mitch
This is just a reminder that our best presidential candidates are sitting this one out. Very depressing
Jul '10
Re: Mitch
Michael Tee: Gollum for President!
Good luck with that. · 8 minutes ago
Right, & Newt is Aragorn? Faramir?
You run with that.
Brian Watt: Respectfully disagree, Peter.
It was merely ample.
Magnificent? Uh...no.
It should have been a rallying cry...with a live audience, especially since it was the last time there would be an official Republican response before the election. It had no fire, no passion and very little energy. It too often came across a dry lecture on accountancy. It won't be the talk around anyone's kitchen table tomorrow morning. · 0 minutes ago
Serviceable and sober, at the least. Worse than Ryan, better than Jindal.
Your criticisms are apt, but he wasn't... awkward? obviously uncomfortable? like Bobby was.
Frankly, serviceable and sober would likely whip Barry and his consistent policy of outsourcing responsibility and taking credit.
Dec '11
Re: Mitch
Whenever I hear a speech from a conservative, I imagine myself to be a not-very-well-informed independent voter.
From that standpoint, the speech was an abject failure.
Not to mention that it was stultifying. Yeah, I know, he had no live audience, but the thing should have had some applause bait, some red meat.
I'd rather have listened to someone read the ingredients from a package of frozen quesadillas.
Jul '11
Re: Mitch
Way to go, Mitch. A mild-mannered midwesterner, no doubt. But grown-up, honest, not lecturing, modest. The only thing he needs to do is crack a self-deprecating joke here or there.
This may all be moot, but I can't see why a credentialed, conservative, two-term swing-state governor who won his second term in a landslide wouldn't be a better candidate than an unliked, fire-breathing, historically unreliable and not consistently conservative man who was kicked out of Congress by his colleagues.
Jun '10
Re: Mitch
Palaeologus
Michael Tee: Gollum for President!
Good luck with that. · 8 minutes ago
Right, & Newt is Aragorn? Faramir?
You run with that.
Brian Watt: Respectfully disagree, Peter.
It was merely ample.
Magnificent? Uh...no.
It should have been a rallying cry...with a live audience, especially since it was the last time there would be an official Republican response before the election. It had no fire, no passion and very little energy. It too often came across a dry lecture on accountancy. It won't be the talk around anyone's kitchen table tomorrow morning. · 0 minutes ago
Serviceable and sober, at the least. Worse than Ryan, better than Jindal.
Your criticisms are apt, but he wasn't... awkward? obviously uncomfortable? like Bobby was.
Frankly, serviceable and sober would likely whip Barry and his consistent policy of outsourcing responsibility and taking credit. · 0 minutes ago
"Serviceable" doesn't cut it when you need to impress the lackadaisical voter and win an election. It was a missed opportunity to corner Obama and point out just how destructive and extra- or anti-Constitutional his policies and administration has been.
Dec '10
Re: Mitch
I just couldn't get into it. The substance was lost in the style. I got the creepy uncle vibe from him.
Sep '10
Re: Mitch
To paraphrase Robert Bork, we're slouching our way to tomorrah
Oct '11
Re: Mitch
I have to admit I was underwhelmed when I heard it from Daniels. After the fog of Obama, I wanted to hear specifics, maybe rebuttal. Mostly, I wanted something to clean the air.
It is a good speech, now as I read it and I'm not distracted by the pedestrian delivery. (Ricochet grammarians - what's the verb I wanted there?) I like that it finishes on a moral theme that many will (hopefully) find a direct contrast to that little huckster's hour-long con.
But I'm a rabid partisan, and I know it. It's the independents Daniels was aiming for. How did they feel about it?