The State of the Union Is Meaningless

 

The problem with a Joe Biden speech is that he doesn’t believe anything he says.

When Reagan claimed to hate the dirty red commies, his personal history and actions in office backed up the statement. When George H.W. Bush promised to spread democracy around the world, even his harshest critics knew he believed it — and shuddered.

Not so with Biden. He boasts of bipartisanship in one paragraph, then accuses Republicans of killing Social Security in the next. One sentence on unity, the next ties a lefty nudist’s attack on Paul Pelosi to January 6. He demands an end to fentanyl, then ignores the issue until the next State of the Union.

Between his stilted cadence and mumble-whisper-SCREAM delivery, you wonder if Biden even knows what he’s saying.

In other words, 2023’s SOTU was about the same as 2022 and 2021.

The difference came from the crowd, which heckled, booed, and mocked the president. I’m no professional orator, but it’s a bad sign when half the audience keeps openly laughing at you.

It was hard to blame Republican congressmen and senators objecting to Biden’s ludicrous claims. A few examples:

Some of my Republican friends want to take the economy hostage unless I agree to their economic plans.

Other Republicans say if we don’t cut Social Security and Medicare, they’ll let America default on its debt for the first time in our history.

America’s border problems won’t be fixed until Congress acts.

Now, some members here are threatening to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act. Make no mistake, if you try to do anything to raise the cost of prescription drugs, I will veto it.

But make no mistake: as we made clear last week, if China’s threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did.

Just a few months ago, unhinged by the Big Lie, an assailant unleashed political violence in the home of the then-Speaker of this House of Representatives. Using the very same language that insurrectionists who stalked these halls chanted on January 6th.

As Republicans ridiculed the claims in real-time, Biden shot back at them, removing any dignity this annual tradition once held. It’s long past time to revert the SOTU address to a written letter.

It wasn’t much easier on the TV audience. Biden’s stumbling, creaky, old-man voice lulls the viewer into a fugue state. Then, out of nowhere, “NAME ME A WORLD LEADER WHO WOULD CHANGE PLACES WITH XI JINPING!” I nearly spilled my martini.

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  1. Eugene Kriegsmann Member
    Eugene Kriegsmann
    @EugeneKriegsmann

    The thing Biden does best is to lie, and even in that he is mediocre and obvious.

    • #31
  2. Red Herring Coolidge
    Red Herring
    @EHerring

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Jon Gabriel, Ed.: Then, out of nowhere, “NAME ME A WORLD LEADER WHO WOULD CHANGE PLACES WITH XI JINPING!”

    Interesting. So he has thought about it. I wonder if anyone else ever has.

    It’s a remarkably stupid utterance. And are we to expect a flurry of tut-tut editorials about racist Sinophobia now? No?

    I’m assuming, of course, that no speechwriter would put that in except under duress.

    Will the White House website post the speech as written or as delivered?

    • #32
  3. Red Herring Coolidge
    Red Herring
    @EHerring

    Hang On (View Comment):

    Biden was pitch perfect for his audience. Your mistake is you think you are his audience. And Republicans only reinforced Joe’s message to the intended audience.

    Reinforcing was happening on both sides.

    • #33
  4. Red Herring Coolidge
    Red Herring
    @EHerring

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    His lie that the Repubs wanted to cut Medicare and Social Security raised ire and led to boos. And he was ridiculous enough to say, you mean you don’t want to do that? Great, so that means we’re all on the same page. Let’s not cut them. So he tried to make it sound like he had lectured them into caving and going along with him. Good grief.

    Their answer to insolvency is modern monetary theory- just print whatever you need

    • #34
  5. Red Herring Coolidge
    Red Herring
    @EHerring

    Vance Richards (View Comment):

    if you try to do anything to raise the cost of prescription drugs, I will veto it..

    Are you working off a written transcript, because that’s not what came out of his mouth?

    Probably working off of a foreign language translator.

    • #35
  6. Red Herring Coolidge
    Red Herring
    @EHerring

    She (View Comment):

    Judge Mental (View Comment):

    davenr321 (View Comment):

    Okaaaay… here’s my question: since SOTU was long after my bedtime, now getting this crisp, succinct review from the esteemed Mr. Gabriel, is it worth the time listening to the reply from the esteemed Governor of Arkansas?

    Gut instinct is that it is not.

    The beginning wasn’t bad, but I drifted off before the end.

    I thought it was a pretty good speech, and it was nice to see her again. However, although she spoke glowingly of Trump’s secret visit to Iraq at Christmas of 2018, she repeatedly (four times, I think) also said that “it is time for a new generation of Republican leadership.”

    When Sarah Sanders says that, that many times, it’s got to be indicative of something….

    I noticed that.

    • #36
  7. Red Herring Coolidge
    Red Herring
    @EHerring

    Scott Wilmot (View Comment):

    The man is an absolute disgrace.

    A man so close to judgment day is playing with fire

    • #37
  8. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    BDB (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Jon Gabriel, Ed.: Then, out of nowhere, “NAME ME A WORLD LEADER WHO WOULD CHANGE PLACES WITH XI JINPING!”

    Interesting. So he has thought about it. I wonder if anyone else ever has.

    It’s a remarkably stupid utterance. And are we to expect a flurry of tut-tut editorials about racist Sinophobia now? No?

    I’m assuming, of course, that no speechwriter would put that in except under duress.

    That line itself sounds like Biden’s rotten old core programming still humming away in the dusty racks of an abandoned data center. Written in NeanderBOL, it generates vaguely topical logical trainwrecks designed to stop the other person, not find answers or make points. This sort of comment is what prompts logical people (bear with me) to say “That’s not even wrong.” It can not be rebutted because it makes no sense. Sure, maybe XJ has it tough. But why would any world leader “trade places” regardless of how well or poorly he’s doing?

    It’s a combinaton of homework assignment, non sequitur, primal hostility (teeth and shouting), and a topical hook. It doesn’t matter what he says, and to the extent that you think it does, you lose. People who retain their faculties may try to unpack the question and begin addressing the missing assumptions (would a trading world leader actually become Chinese, or would the Chineseness of China stop mattering after the trade?) and so forth. Annnd you lost.

    People do that here, too. We just don’t elect them President.

    Look, fat …

    • #38
  9. Django Member
    Django
    @Django

    Gazpacho Grande' (View Comment):

    Django (View Comment):

    I caught a bit of Mark Levin while on the road today. At one point, IIRC, Levin said that Slow Joe had asked when he was declared the winner in 2020 what he had to do to be the most consequential and most remembered prez ever. The answer was that he had to out-do FDR. So we have a senile old fool put in office by morons who thinks he has to spend more, tackle more than anyone else has. If he makes a pig’s breakfast of everything and bankrupts the country? Hey, that’s just the price of being The Big Guy.

    So he’s going to put more Asian-Americans into internment camps that FDR?

    It’s good to have goals.

    If someone told him that act would get him a landslide reelection in 2024, he’d do it in a cocaine heartbeat. 

    • #39
  10. DaveSchmidt Coolidge
    DaveSchmidt
    @DaveSchmidt

    She (View Comment):

    Crimenutely. It was my coffee that almost went bottoms-up. I think he actually shouts “NAME ME A WORLD LEADER WHO CHANGED PLACES WITH XI JINPING!! And then just in case anyone is likely to take him up on the challenge, he shouts even louder, “NAME ME ONE!!! NAME ME ONE!!!!” Glory be.

    Then there’s this:

     

    What in the covfefe was Biden trying to say? 

    • #40
  11. Columbo Inactive
    Columbo
    @Columbo

    • #41
  12. Django Member
    Django
    @Django

    • #42
  13. She Member
    She
    @She

    DaveSchmidt (View Comment):

    She (View Comment):

    Crimenutely. It was my coffee that almost went bottoms-up. I think he actually shouts “NAME ME A WORLD LEADER WHO CHANGED PLACES WITH XI JINPING!! And then just in case anyone is likely to take him up on the challenge, he shouts even louder, “NAME ME ONE!!! NAME ME ONE!!!!” Glory be.

    Then there’s this:

     

     

    What in the covfefe was Biden trying to say?

    Well, I just had a look at the transcript of what he is supposed to have been intending to say.  The word “veto” appears twice.

    I think the instance that goes, “Make no mistake; if Congress passes a national abortion ban, I will veto it,” is too far removed even from the gobbledygook coming out of Biden’s mouth to be right here.

    Therefore, I suspect that the proposed input which Biden’s output garbled as, “MAKE NO MISTAKE! If you try anything to raise the cost of frisizhnjubs I will veto it,” probably started out life as “Make no mistake, if you try to do anything to raise the cost of prescription drugs, I will veto it.”

    LOL.

    • #43
  14. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    I listened to very little of it. But what I did hear was from a man who slurred so badly one would have to feel that he was either drunk or having a stroke.

    • #44
  15. GlennAmurgis Coolidge
    GlennAmurgis
    @GlennAmurgis

    Hugh had the “highlights” on his show.  

    Biden was never the sharpest stick but now it is just sad. 

     

    • #45
  16. DrewInWisconsin, Oik Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oik
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    Jon Gabriel, Ed.: “NAME ME A WORLD LEADER WHO WOULD CHANGE PLACES WITH XI JINPING!”

    What does that even mean? Is he trying to suggest that Xi is shaking in his boots because he feels threatened by . . . Joe Biden???

    I think I need a little context. If there is any.

    Yeah, that was my reaction. I don’t understand what he’s saying here.

    And while I’ve noticed his prominent squinting before, last night his whole face was pinched. More and more he’s looking like this guy:

    About

    • #46
  17. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    DrewInWisconsin, Oik (View Comment):

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    Jon Gabriel, Ed.: “NAME ME A WORLD LEADER WHO WOULD CHANGE PLACES WITH XI JINPING!”

    What does that even mean? Is he trying to suggest that Xi is shaking in his boots because he feels threatened by . . . Joe Biden???

    I think I need a little context. If there is any.

    Yeah, that was my reaction. I don’t understand what he’s saying here.

    And while I’ve noticed his prominent squinting before, last night his whole face was pinched. More and more he’s looking like this guy:

    About

    At least Walter is entertaining.

     

    • #47
  18. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Ed G. (View Comment):

    Don’t we want to cut social security and medicare? I thought that fiscal soundness was only possible in part by doing that.

    More like reducing the rate of increase, which to Dimocrats for many years, has been called a “cut.”

    • #48
  19. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Columbo (View Comment):

    • #49
  20. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Lois Lane (View Comment):
    He is himself still.  And that “self” is just not very impressive.

    You’re waaay too kind.

    • #50
  21. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Lois Lane (View Comment):

    This is Woodrow Wilson’s fault, yes? Isn’t he the president who decided his tongue was so silver that SOTU addresses should happen in person?

    I don’t know.

    I suppose George Washington’s Farewell Address could be described as a type of SOTU, which was printed, not spoken. I teach tiny excerpts of that bit of eloquence that sprung mostly from the pen of Alexander Hamilton almost every term…. I don’t like to engage in hagiography when it comes to founding fathers. They were mere humans who were often hard-nosed politicians. But holy cow. At least I still admire them.

    I haven’t admired American “leaders” for a very long time now, and I certainly don’t believe Joe Biden is anything other than a blow-hard prevaricator, which he has always been. Now he’s more feeble, but so what? He is himself still. And that “self” is just not very impressive.

    Washington was worthy, though.

    • #51
  22. Gazpacho Grande' Coolidge
    Gazpacho Grande'
    @ChrisCampion

    Scott Wilmot (View Comment):

    The man is an absolute disgrace.

    Another lie.  If it’s the House’s jobs to “protect rights” – which is probably more of the Executive branch in terms of actions taken to protect rights, like a DoJ – then why didn’t the house pass a law on abortion 57 years ago?  

    Because they’re cowards, and rely on judicial precedent so they can keep their cushy jobs.  And it’s easy for a president to say it, he doesn’t write the laws, but it’ll be sure to garner a round of applause from the chattering monkeys in attendance.

    If you’re going to be a chattering monkey, please at least throw some scat around.  Adds a touch of realism sadly lacking in the ol’ dog and pony show.  Well, dog and pony and monkey.

     

    • #52
  23. Gazpacho Grande' Coolidge
    Gazpacho Grande'
    @ChrisCampion

    Scott Wilmot (View Comment):

    The man is an absolute disgrace.

    Again, if he’s the president, why not write an Executive Order?  Seems to work fine for a whole bunch of other crap that doesn’t get voted on or ooze out of the distended rectal area of Congress.

    • #53
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