Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) gave a perfectly serviceable speech last night. It was a bit dull, maybe, but it wasn’t a wrenching exercise in self-humiliation. Which is to say, by the standards of post-SOTU responses, it was a stunning, historic success. But it was also a reminder of the difficulties Daniels, a fantasy-draft presidential pick for many Republicans, would face if he entered the campaign. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) speaks during a news conference on the signing of an...
Obama's State of the Union endorsement of an 'all of the above' strategy for energy production rankled Republicans, who see it as disingenuous given his Keystone XL pipeline rejection and fracking probes. President Obama hit several dozen topics in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, but none rankled congressional Republicans quite like his statements on energy policy. Skip to next paragraph “On a scale from one to outrageous, it was closer to outrageous,” said Rep. Phil Gingrey...
SEAL Team 6 members raided a compound in Somalia early Wednesday to free two hostages held by pirates since October. The raid signals that US 'will not tolerate' abductions of Americans, Obama said. In the early morning hours Wednesday, US Special Operations forces raided a Somali compound and rescued an American and a Dane who had been held hostage by pirates since October. Skip to next paragraph The hostages had been abducted at gunpoint near the semiautonomous region of Galcayo,...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The secret was still intact when President Barack Obama, entering the House chamber Tuesday evening to deliver his State of the Union speech, pointed at his Pentagon chief and said, "Good job tonight." Unknown to a global television audience watching the annual Capitol Hill ritual, a bold U.S. raid was still playing out half a world away with an elite Navy SEAL team's rescue of two hostages in Somalia, one of them an American. It was the same unit that killed al-Qaida leader...
In last night's State of the Union address, President Barack Obama praised Master Lock, a 90-year-old Milwaukee-based company, for building its locks here in the United States. "A few weeks ago, the CEO of Master Lock told me that it now makes business sense for him to bring jobs back home. Today, for the first time in fifteen years, Master Lock's unionized plant in Milwaukee is running at full capacity," the president said. Within minutes, Master Lock's website was down, as our own Megan...
Last night's State of the Union will not take a place alongside Barack Obama's 2008 speech on race. It won't be mentioned in the same breath as his 2004 speech in Boston. It didn't even have the intellectual scope and narrative sweep of his 2011 speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. Rather, it was a laundry list of policies, along the lines of the State of the Unions Bill Clinton delivered late in his presidency. Which makes perfect sense. Obama is staffed by much of the same team that wrote those...
< style="display:none;"> </div> Below is the full text of tonight's State of the Union address released by the White House: Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans: Last month, I went to Andrews Air Force Base and welcomed home some of our last troops to serve in Iraq. Together, we offered a final, proud salute to the colors under which more than a million of our fellow citizens fought – and several thousand gave their...
President Barack Obama, having watched his Republican adversaries pound him for weeks, got his turn Tuesday, using his State of the Union speech to land the first major counterpunch of the still-forming 2012 election. It came before a prime-time audience of millions that the GOP candidates can only envy, even if their fiery debates are turning heads. Obama didn’t mention Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich in his third State of the Union address. But the GOP contenders were never far from mind....
President Barack Obama didn’t turn his State of the Union speech into an overt pitch for his reelection, but he did push back against his Republican rivals in his address. West Wing officials chided reporters earlier Tuesday for assuming that he would use the prime-time perch to deliver a campaign stemwinder, saying he planned a substantive address that would not deviate in tone from other speeches to Congress. Continue Reading But a closer look at the rhetoric shows that Obama had some big...
