02.24.09 | 5:54 pm
Miscellaneous Reax

Reactions from various members of Congress.

CBS also has an initial reaction poll. (Unfortunately, their site seems to have crashed, at least for now. Thought that only happened to us.)

And you know it’s bad when the folks at Fox think Jindal blew it.

CNN also has a reax poll.

02.24.09 | 5:50 pm
Just Awful

As I said, I thought Jindal’s comments and presentation was just weird and cringy and awful. But I’m told by multiple readers that David Brooks totally unloaded on Jindal’s speech on PBS. We’ll try to track down more details.

Late Update: Jonathan Singer has some more details at MyDD.

02.24.09 | 5:25 pm
Jindal Blogging

“Pre-existing condition”? Is it just me or is this absolutely cringeworthy? I mean, I really don’t like Jindal.

jack-mcbrayer-blog.jpg

But this is awful.

10:26 PM … Is he going to talk about his work as an exorcist?

10:28 PM … Katrina as metaphor for opposing the Stimulus Bill. Not happening for me.

10:28 PM … Raising taxes? Isn’t the bill like 40% tax cuts?

10:30 PM … I think this is the new angle … referring to ‘magnetic levitation’ like it’s some sort weird thing you do at a commune. I guess it’s funny not to understand that really fast trains don’t all run on diesel.

02.24.09 | 4:58 pm
Wrapping Up Post-Non-SOTU SOTU Blogging

10:00 PM … Did I get my sections mixed up or did most of the GOP legislators hop to their feet when Obama said “We do not torture”? That’s a major policy switch.

10:11 PM … Lieberman bags a hug!

02.24.09 | 4:00 pm
Special Not-Really-SOTU SOTU Blogging

9:09 PM … tiptiptip: Hey, is this thing on?

9:10 PM … I think Brian Williams just said Rahm Emanuel is a veteran of the IDF. I’m pretty sure that’s not true. He did some sort of civilian volunteer thing during the Gulf War. (ed.note: — he just corrected at 10:17 PM)

9:11 PM … Huh, what happened to that Bush guy?

9:16 PM … Hey, maybe it wasn’t Roberts’ fault!

9:18 PM … Here’s the text of the speech itself.

9:19 PM … It just occurred to me that the tempo and dynamics of a congressional address are very, very different from those Obama is best known for. You never really get more than a few sentences to get warmed up before you need to stop for more applause.

9:22 PM … Reminds me: Why did Bush destroy the country?

9:30 PM … That was a very open-ended statement on the fate of the biggest banks and what may happen to them if they can’t manage on their own. The key points were about support and continuity of institutions that can provide a banking function.

Here’s the quote: “We will act with the full force of the federal government to ensure that the major banks that Americans depend on have enough confidence and enough money to lend even in more difficult times. And when we learn that a major bank has serious problems, we will hold accountable those responsible, force the necessary adjustments, provide the support to clean up their balance sheets, and assure the continuity of a strong, viable institution that can serve our people and our economy.”

9:40 PM … Simon Johnson has more on that passage on the banks in the speech.

9:56 PM … Speech seems a bit more disjointed in these last minutes.

9:56 PM … This point about honest budget accounting sounds very wonky. And it is in a lot of ways. But the Obama people are very big on it. It’s actually amazing how much stuff was not included in the Bush era budgeting. Cost of Iraq and Afghanistan for the next 6 or 7 years? Hard to say. So just don’t count it, etc.

02.24.09 | 3:57 pm
Obama Speech Open Thread

Join Matt Cooper over at TPMDC for real-time discussion and commentary during Obama’s speech, which is just about to get underway. Matt just got the conversation going. The more the merrier …