SOTU Live Coverage and Open Thread

New commentary up top. Your commentary in comments. Let's play ball.

7:26 -- Why do Dems need to have their leaders give the rebuttal? Our congressional heads have a lot of roles and talents, but oratory is not necessarily among them. Is there a reason we can't have, say, Biden and Tim Ryan offering the response? Anyway, I need dinner. Been fun, though.

7:23 -- Pelosi's a markedly ineffective speaker. Her facial expressions are off, delivery monotonous. She's definitely making Reid look good here. And us bad. Or at least boring.

7:19 -- Reid just compared the President's speech to Groundhog Day. Now he's hitting privatization. Problem is, Bush is talking about how Social Security is going to destroy our economy, and Democrats are explaining how Bush's Social Security plan will destroy our economy. They need to explain why something being floated as a fiscal plan is actually profligate.

7:14 -- Sen. Reid and Rep. Pelosi are giving the response. Reid is in full Mr. Rogers mode, talking about his humble beginnings, and offering self-deprecating anecdotes. He's certainly the lowest-key, most calming speaker I've ever seen. Not necessarily boring, but pleasant, hypnotic, like a lullaby. His speech is good and sharp though, whether anybody's watching is another question.

7:05 -- He's finished. Good speech, well delivered. The difference between extemporaneous debate Bush and scripted Bush is tremendous.

I wish I had some rhetorically sharp, substantively incisive wrap-up for you, but there's not much to talk about. As I said below, "sounds good, but how?" Beyond the speech, the moment spent watching Sgt. Norwood's mother fight back tears was just devastating. Also, we put Iran on the defensive, promised support for a revolution and surely scared the shit out of the mullahs. I hope it was the right thing to do, and won't simply convince the government they need nukes all the quicker.

7:03 -- The mother of the Iraqi soldier Bush just eulogized had the hardest, most agonizing struggle playing across her face as she battled to hold back the tears. It almost made me cry. In politics, you can forget that this is all so real. The applause the family is now getting is the night's most affecting moment, by far.

6:59 -- "Freedom in Iraq will make America safer for generations to come."

Sounds good, but, how? Actually, that sums up my feelings about the whole speech (save for the "round-up all gay gays" portion)..

6:54 -- He just pushed Saudi Arabia. Good for him! But file this paragraph under "movies I've seen before":

To promote peace in the broader Middle East, we must confront regimes that continue to harbor terrorists and pursue weapons of mass murder. Syria still allows its territory, and parts of Lebanon, to be used by terrorists who seek to destroy every chance of peace in the region. You have passed, and we are applying, the Syrian Accountability Act - and we expect the Syrian government to end all support for terror and open the door to freedom. Today, Iran remains the world's primary state sponsor of terror - pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve. We are working with European allies to make clear to the Iranian regime that it must give up its uranium enrichment program and any plutonium re-processing, and end its support for terror. And to the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you.

That last line? An attempt to embolden reformers in Iran and provoke an overthrow. Which it probably won't do. What it will do is provoke the famously paranoid Iranian government towards further fear and more determined pursuit of power. I'm for democracy-promotion, but this sort of thing has proven counterproductive when applied to Iran in the past.

6:48 -- "The United States has no intention of imposing our form of government on anybody else." That's kinda untrue, isn't it? I mean, democracy is good and I think we should promote it, but when you invade a country and push the leaders we install into holding elections leading towards a pluralistic, representative democracy, we're pretty much imposing our form of government on them.

6:46 -- We don't like terrorists. "We'll stand with the allies of freedom". Also, Uzbekistan, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia...

6:45 -- It's hard to say much about these speeches. I mean, they're nice enough, and most of the points are framed in broadly acceptable terms. The only real comment I have is "yeah, if only it was like you say". But beyond that, I got nothin'. TJ and Kate are having a ball in comments though.

6:44 -- My old live-blogging partner Matt Singer is doing commentary. And the Center for American Progress is doing real-time fact-checking.

6:38 -- I should have noted this earlier, but Raw Story has the text of the whole speech. Sing-along!

6:37 -- At about 6:34, we left the President's speech and entered candidate Bush territory. Really weird -- one moment we're framing everything in broadly appealing terms, and then it went straight to exclusion and bigotry. Zero-to-wingnut in 60 seconds.

6:35 -- We've entered conservative red-meat zone. No gays, no choice. "Our second great responsibility to our children and grandchildren is to honor and to pass along the values that sustain a free society. So many of my generation, after a long journey, have come home to family and faith, and are determined to bring up responsible, moral children...For the good of families, children, and society, I support a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage." Also -- "I will work with Congress...so human life is never bought and sold as a commodity." Parse that out for me, please.

6:30 -- "voluntary personal retirement accounts." Your money will grow at a higher rate than anything the current system can deliver, which means more money for you, yay!

No mention, oddly, of the vastly increased risk.

6:28 -- President says "we have to move ahead with courage and honesty." Insert your own snark.

6:27 -- For the old, Social Security won't change in any way. For the young, it will change in every way. "Social Security was created decades ago, for a very different era." Bush keeps demonizing higher benefits. Weird. Now we're lying our way through the imminent death of Social Security. I think the Democrats just jeered him! And again! I'm serious, half the audience began groaning at him when he went into the crisis. Now that's balls.

6:24 -- Here comes Social Security. Somewhere in New York, Josh Marshall's fingernails are crying for relief.

6:24 -- "We should not be content with laws that punish hard-working people who only want to provide for their families." Indeed.

6:22 -- Whoops, Bush just got determined and shouted at Congress to pass his energy bill so we're less dependent on foreign sources. Word up, Bush! No longer will the foreign-born menace of MTBE lawsuits yolk us to Saudi Arabia!

6:20 -- Ho hum thus far. Flowers and candy. Tort reform (apparently, the healthy economy we just talked about is being totally ravaged by asbestos lawsuit). And he's apparently got a comprehensive health care agenda: "tax credits to help low-income workers buy insurance, a community health center in every poor county, improved information technology to prevent medical errors and needless costs, association health plans for small businesses and their employees, expanded health savings accounts, and medical liability reform that will reduce health care costs, and make sure patients have the doctors and care they need."

Want to bet that bill will turn out worse than it sounds?

6:17 -- We're moving right into economic mysticism. "America's prosperity requires restraining the spending appetite of the federal government. I welcome the bipartisan enthusiasm for spending discipline. So next week I will send you a budget that holds the growth of discretionary spending below inflation, makes tax relief permanent, and stays on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009."

6:14 -- Never mind, he's still going. This is apparently about our grandchildren's (my?) union.

6:13 -- The state of our union is "confident and strong". Well that was fun, I'll see you guys later.

6:09 -- Chris Matthews is the most inane commentator I've ever heard: "Look at that jaunty arrival! Look at that bounce up there! Well I guess that's the theme tonight, jauntiness."

And here I thought it was the condition of the country.

6:08 -- And here's Bush and Co.

6:05 -- Cabinet comes in. I spend hours a day on politics and find that I still can't recognize the majority of these folks.

6:03 -- Laura's coming in. Powder blue tonight, OMG!!! And, for the record, Hastert and Cheney are the most fat-cat looking white men I've ever seen.