"Well, speaking of last night, that was a tough speech to sit through and try to stomach because the president is so off base in his ideas in how it is he believes government is going to create jobs. Obviously, government growth won’t create any jobs. It’s the private sector that can create the jobs. His theme last night in the State of the Union was the WTF, you know, 'Winning the Future,' and I thought OK, that acronym, spot on. There were a lot of WTF moments throughout that speech."
American Glob gets the best visual:
US News and World Reports claims Obama's SOTU speech is "Tantamount to Plagiarism." (From their headline)
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, what can be said of plagiarism? President Obama’s second State of the Union address contained enough recycled ideas and lines lifted from speeches of others to make historians wince. I suppose this is what one does when one not only has nothing new to say, but is required by custom and Constitution to come forth with a report of some kind by a certain time and day.
Had Obama or his writers been considerate enough to have informed listeners of where some of the president’s best lines and offered-up ideas originated, the speech might be remembered for its cutting and pasting of great and not-so-great moments of the past performance of others. After quoting Robert Kennedy early on, Obama tried to have his listeners believe that everything else he said that we might remember were his or his writers’ creations. Had the president submitted the text of his second State of the Union Address in the form of a college term paper, he would have been sent forthwith to the nearest academic dean. Once again, our public affairs are such that we have one standard for presidents and another for undergraduates. Now is as good a time as any to let Obama’s listeners in on what the late Paul Harvey would have termed “the rest of the story.”
Read the entire thing, they provide specific examples and then show you where they originally came from and who first said them.
Not sure I really agree with the charge of plagiarism, after all, every President quotes famous lines or uses ideas from others when trying to say the same thing every other president has said each year for the SOTU.
Personally I think the SOTU is a huge waste of time and money which I consider a tradition that needs to die a natural death. It also screws up the television line up!!!
Special mention goes to Democratic Senate Majority leader Harry Reid who tells the President to "back off" earmarks.
"This is an applause line," Reid said. "It's an effort by the White House to get more power. They've got enough power as it is."
Reid, along with other lawmakers who support earmarking, argues that eliminating the practice simply puts more discretion in the hands of executive branch officials who have authority to fund projects. "I have a Constitutional obligation to do congressionally directed spending," he said. "I know much more about what should be done in Elko [or] Las Vegas, Nevada, than some bureaucrat does back here."
Reid said voters should recognize that eliminating congressional earmarks does not, in itself, reduce spending but changes how the same money is spent.
"I think it's absolutely wrong and the public should understand that the president has enough power; he should back off and let us do what we do."
Suggesting almost dismissively that the president is playing to the crowd, he added that Obama may win "in the short term" with conservatives and those in the public who think that the practice should be nixed.
Everyone knows Reid has never met an earmark he didn't like.
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