Speech-watching on CSPAN
Feb. 24th, 2009 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jducoeurAssorted impressions, amidst the applause:
Amusing to realize where the power lies in the chamber. Obama can't get the members to shut up -- but Pelosi can do so almost instantly. Subtle detail of protocol.
It's fascinating to watch which sentences get the Republican butts out of seats and which don't. Minority Leader looks like he's sucking a lemon, but knows he has to stand.
I'm happy that he's talking about America leading in industry -- I just hope that isn't coded protectionism. (Really, I suspect it isn't, at least not unsubtly: the next battles are more going to be over subsidies rather than tariffs, I'd bet.)
*Boy*, some of the members are unenthused about being asked to deal with cap-and-trade.
Calling for health care reform is easy: now to see if they can manage to produce on the hard bits. SCHIP was the easy part, politically. At least he admits that it's going to be hard. Wow -- he specifically said it won't wait another year. That's going to be a hard marker to pay.
Hmm. Calling for *real* education reform? Be interesting to see what the nuts and bolts look like there.
Fascinating tack: calling on the citizens to improve their own education. That's a novel way to phrase it: if they can manage to make it work financially, it could have more lasting effects than anything else on the list. It would be a fine change if education can be made more of a cultural priority.
Heh -- calling for the end of earmarks gets a much more restrained applause, especially from the Democrats. Oooh, he's goring *everybody's* oxen. Nicely even-handed: the relative quiet in the chambers tells me that he's onto something here.
Predictably, the Democrats are lapping up the tax plans, and the Republicans are conspicuously hating them.
Calling for tax-free savings accounts for everybody. Lovely thing from my 401k-free viewpoint.
Ah, good: putting the cost of the wars into the budget. That's been one of the bigger problems for years now.
The Republicans *shoot* up for the warhawk talk about Pakistan.
Nothing quite like being a businessman cited by the President for conspicuous decency. I suspect he'll have a hundred requests for interviews by tomorrow morning.
Summary: By Obama's standards, the rhetoric was fairly ordinary. OTOH, workaday Obama is still better than most Presidential speeches of the past 30 years, so it was still pleasant to listen to. And as effectively the vision statement for the administration, it was good stuff, if almost dauntingly ambitious. The next year should be fascinating to watch...
Amusing to realize where the power lies in the chamber. Obama can't get the members to shut up -- but Pelosi can do so almost instantly. Subtle detail of protocol.
It's fascinating to watch which sentences get the Republican butts out of seats and which don't. Minority Leader looks like he's sucking a lemon, but knows he has to stand.
I'm happy that he's talking about America leading in industry -- I just hope that isn't coded protectionism. (Really, I suspect it isn't, at least not unsubtly: the next battles are more going to be over subsidies rather than tariffs, I'd bet.)
*Boy*, some of the members are unenthused about being asked to deal with cap-and-trade.
Calling for health care reform is easy: now to see if they can manage to produce on the hard bits. SCHIP was the easy part, politically. At least he admits that it's going to be hard. Wow -- he specifically said it won't wait another year. That's going to be a hard marker to pay.
Hmm. Calling for *real* education reform? Be interesting to see what the nuts and bolts look like there.
Fascinating tack: calling on the citizens to improve their own education. That's a novel way to phrase it: if they can manage to make it work financially, it could have more lasting effects than anything else on the list. It would be a fine change if education can be made more of a cultural priority.
Heh -- calling for the end of earmarks gets a much more restrained applause, especially from the Democrats. Oooh, he's goring *everybody's* oxen. Nicely even-handed: the relative quiet in the chambers tells me that he's onto something here.
Predictably, the Democrats are lapping up the tax plans, and the Republicans are conspicuously hating them.
Calling for tax-free savings accounts for everybody. Lovely thing from my 401k-free viewpoint.
Ah, good: putting the cost of the wars into the budget. That's been one of the bigger problems for years now.
The Republicans *shoot* up for the warhawk talk about Pakistan.
Nothing quite like being a businessman cited by the President for conspicuous decency. I suspect he'll have a hundred requests for interviews by tomorrow morning.
Summary: By Obama's standards, the rhetoric was fairly ordinary. OTOH, workaday Obama is still better than most Presidential speeches of the past 30 years, so it was still pleasant to listen to. And as effectively the vision statement for the administration, it was good stuff, if almost dauntingly ambitious. The next year should be fascinating to watch...
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One particular nuance
Date: 2009-02-25 05:14 am (UTC)And yes, the chamber and the intros nicely emphasized, for the first time in too long, that this is supposed to be three equal branches of government.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-25 07:53 pm (UTC)Did you see the look on Hillary's face when Obama was talking about health care reform? She had this little smile on her face that was equally composed of wistful and knowing. I suspect there was a lot of "Well, *I* tried that, and got steamrollered. Nobody applauded ME . . . " and "Let's see if HE gets steamrollered," and also, because I think she really does believe in the idea, "Geez, maybe HE can actually get it through." It was just a quick shot of her, but I felt sorry for her. Although Obama does seem to want to use all her formidable intelligence, and has put her in a powerful position.
And do you know who the Marine was? This was during the "everyday heroes" part of the speech, when Obama was talking about Supporting The Troops. The Marine seemed to be somebody important - he had lots of medals for someone who looked so young (*sigh*) and was sitting in the same area as the President's wife, which I gather was the Very Important People section. And everybody clapped for him, including the president. But I had no idea who he was.
I agree that I've heard a lot of the rhetoric before, and some of it was getting to be The Same. Yeah, yeah, bailout plan, save people's houses, yeah, I get it, blah, blah, blah. However, I was glad I listened, because Obama always slips in a surprise. I was ASTONISHED that he's taking on the Big Farm Lobby. This is something that TIME magazine pointed out as being the porkiest of pork barrels, but they didn't hold out a lot of hope for change. It would be cool if Obama could address that.
And did you see him signing autographs afterward? Good heavens, it looked like Tom Brady was out there. I don't think that anyone ever wanted W's autograph . . .
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-25 11:27 pm (UTC)Yaas, but I think that's normal for a State of the Union speech, which this essentially was. IIRC, Competitive Clapping is a standard part of the sport.
I agree that this must be bittersweet for Hilary -- she almost certainly wants health care reform to succeed more than almost anybody, but wishes she was the one getting to win that fight.
Don't know about the Marine, no.
I actually found several surprises in the speech. He went directly after several popular porky projects (and things got much more hushed in that bit). And it sounds like he might, just possibly, do education reform right.
Didn't notice the autograph signings -- that *is* amusing...