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By Brendan Loy
In honor of President Bush's final State of the Union address (which is now underway; liveblogging below), Loyette wore a very Republican-looking outfit today:
I'm not sure she likes President Bush, though:
Don't worry, darlin', most Americans feel pretty much the same way. :)
P.S. Loyette is four weeks old today!
By Brendan Loy
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UPDATE: Above, you can listen to a live audioblogged clip of President Bush being introduced.
In case you're wondering, CNN reported that Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is the odd man out of the State of the Union tonight, preserving the line of succession in case the unthinkable happens.
I wonder if Kempthorne was as momentarily alarmed as I was when the TV signal, on CNN at least, appeared to cut out for a split-second. It came right back on, but my heart skipped a beat there. If somebody blew up the Congress, that's how it might look on TV, no? Everything's normal, and then -- [no signal].
Anyway... President Bush just said if we don't pass new trade agreements, it will "embolden the purveyors of false populism in our hemisphere." You mean like Mike Huckabee and John Edwards? :)
UPDATE 2: Heh. Great minds think alike. Or something.
UPDATE 3: Did I just hear some guy loudly yelling something at the tail end of the round of applause for the success of the surge?
UPDATE 4: Hopefully next year at this time, we'll have a president who can say "nuclear."
UPDATE 5: "Our message to the Iranian people is clear: When Iran gets her freedom, boy, you'll get your motor car!"
UPDATE 6: "America opposes genocide in Sudan"?!? Well that's a relief! Here I thought we supported it! Seriously, what kind of weak-ass language is that... ridiculous!
UPDATE 7: A-ha... it sounded dumb because he flubbed the line, plus there was an inappropriate applause break. He was supposed to say, "America is opposing genocide in Sudan and supporting freedom in countries from Cuba and Zimbabwe to Belarus and Burma."
UPDATE 8: BOB DOLE!!!
UPDATE 9: Mark it down: he said "he State of Union will remain strong" ... at 10:02 PM. It was the second-to-the-last sentence of the speech.
Lame.
UPDATE 10: Who are these dorky congresspeople kissing Bush's ass on his way out? "You make me proud to be an American"? Gag me. Methinks the audio feed is a bad idea for the maintenance of these people's dignity...
UPDATE 11: I agree with Fox's Fred Barnes -- the best line of the speech was: "Others have said they would personally be happy to pay higher taxes. I welcome their enthusiasm, and I am pleased to report that the I.R.S. accepts both checks and money orders." Heh. I laughed out loud.
UPDATE 12: Bush just almost shared a Lieberman-like kiss with Barney Frank! Teehee.
UPDATE 13: Charles Krauthammer is the creepiest-looking person on earth.
UPDATE 14: OMG! Nancy Pelosi was "mouthing"!
Looks more like she was chewing gum or something.
UPDATE 15: Good opening to Sebelius's speech. All about bipartisanship, etc. Very Obama-esque!
UPDATE 16: Here's the text:
I'm a Democrat, but tonight, it really doesn't matter whether you think of yourself as a Democrat...or a Republican...or an Independent. Or...none-of-the-above.Instead, the fact you're tuning in this evening tells me each of you is, above all...
...an American, first.
You are mothers, and fathers. Grandparents, and grandchildren. Working people, and business-owners. Americans, all.
And the American people - folks like you, and me - are not nearly as divided as our rancorous politics might suggest.
In fact, right now, tonight, as political pundits discuss the President's speech - chances are, they'll obsess over the reactions of Members of Congress.
"How many times was the President interrupted by applause? Did Republicans stand? Did Democrats sit?"
And the rest of us will roll our eyes and think, "What in the world does any of that have to do with me?"
And, so, I want to take a slight detour from tradition on this State of the Union night.
In this time, normally reserved for the partisan response, I hope to offer you something more:
An American Response.
A national call to action on behalf of the struggling families in the heartland, and across this great country. A wakeup call to Washington, on behalf of a new American majority, that time is running out on our opportunities to meet our challenges and solve our problems.
UPDATE 17: A possible reason to vote against McCain: we'd be replacing a guy who pronounces "nuclear" "nukular" with a guy pronounces "Washington" "Warshington."
By Brendan Loy
Once upon a time, Hillary Clinton was the "establishment candidate" in the Democratic presidential race. But Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama today is only the latest crack in that foundation, writes ABC's The Note:
It's not just the Kennedys who are falling into line for Obama, as the non-Clinton Democratic establishment...coalesces (along with with scattered red-staters -- and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, D-Kan., is next, after she delivers the Democratic response to the State of the Union) to try to steer a party into a new direction.
Obama spoke both for them and to them, in an interview on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" on Sunday. "There is no doubt that I think that in the '90s, we got caught up in a slash-and-burn politics that the American people are weary of," Obama said. "And we still see it in Washington today."
It's been a long time coming, The New Republic's Noam Scheiber reports in the magazine's new issue. "For people like [John] Kerry and [Tom] Daschle and especially their former advisers, the Clintons' continued presence at the center of Democratic politics has sometimes chafed over the last eight years," Scheiber writes.
"It may not be apparent beyond the Beltway, but the Clintons kept their grip on Democratic Washington long after leaving the White House. . . . If you've looked for a job in the Democrats' government-in-exile lately, chances are you've hit up a Clintonite."
How did the Clintons burn so much goodwill so quickly? Why is the establishment candidate facing a revolt from inside the establishment?
Start with persistent concerns that Sen. Clinton's candidacy would guarantee a revival of the pitched partisan battles of the past two decades. Sprinkle in Bill's performance of the last few weeks, which persisted right up through the primary in South Carolina with his comparison of Obama to Jesse Jackson.
Add to it a broader sense of how Hillary was running her campaign -- another factor that hurt her with voters in South Carolina every bit as much as it hurt her with party regulars in Washington, Bloomberg's Al Hunt writes.
"Hyperbole is a staple of American political campaigns. Senator Hillary Clinton has crossed the line into distortion," writes Hunt (hardly a Clinton basher). "She has flagrantly misrepresented her own and her opponents' positions or statements. The general tone, more than any specifics, of the Clinton effort contributed to Barack Obama's stunning 2-to-1 victory over her in the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary this past weekend."
Hunt's article is worth reading in its own right. It does a good job distinguishing between run-of-the-mill exaggeration, which all candidates are guilty of, and the Clintons' routine practice of out-and-out lying. He concludes: "Privately, some Clintonites agree that while the campaign is ugly, it's only a prelude to what Republicans will do in the general election. Perhaps, but Hillary Clinton is paying a price. There is so much to admire in her public life. Her whatever-it-takes campaign is debasing that value."
Meanwhile, echoing my "P.S." below, TNR's Michael Crowley writes, "If he wanted to, Al Gore could deliver something close to a death blow right now by endorsing Obama." I don't know about "death blow," but right now -- or, better yet, tomorrow evening, just in time to completely steal the thunder from Hillary's "win" in the beauty-contest Florida primary whose significance she is now trying to resurrect, in flagrant violation of (at least) the spirit of the party rules that she and everyone else agreed to -- would certainly be a great time for him to jump on the bandwagon.
By Brendan Loy
Mark Halperin explains why Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Obama is a big deal.
Somewhat less of a big deal, but still interesting and potentially helpful: Kathleen Sebelius will endorse Obama later in the week. Sebelius is the governor of Kansas (a Super Tuesday state) and a rising political star who will be giving tomorrow night's Democratic response to the State of the Union address. Hmm... Obama-Sebelius '08? (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.)
P.S. As long as we're talking about Obama endorsements... what about Al Gore?
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