Blogging the State of Our Union
pO157.
Posted to Politics on Mon Jan 28, 2008 at 05:58:32 PM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.
"The President shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient."
The State of the Union speech is given (or mailed) once a year to a gathered assemblage of both houses of Congress. The messages change from year to year, but the overall format is the same. The President discusses memorable events of the past year (or his administration), challenges facing the nation, and his agenda for the upcoming year. This will be Mr. Bush's final State of the Union address, unless he uses the option of presenting a final one as a lame duck just before Inauguration Day in 2009.
While the content of the speech has been vetted in advance by focus groups, politicos, spin doctors and the press (who usually have advanced written copies), viewers at home can also get in on the action. People around the world watch the speech and pass the time by counting the number of applause interruptions by members of the President's party, get drunk, try to catch the members of your states' congressional delegation not paying attention, scan the crowd for odd face time interactions with the President, or play the old classic "Who can figure out the Designated Survivor first?"
Whatever your intentions, discuss the events of the evening here. What better place to parse the last and perhaps most important State of the Union of President Bush's time in the Oval Office than with some of the Internet's most intelligent users?
Update: CNN has the full transcript. Here's a link to a transcript of the Democratic response, given by Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.
Update: If you missed it last night, watch the SOTU right here on Treesandthings:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
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