Tornado Alley (PROG)

[StephanieVanbryce]

A Tale Of Two SOTUs

January 26, 2010, 1:17 pm

In 1982 Ronald Reagan gave his first State of the Union address. His approval rating was about the same as Barack Obama’s now. His economic track record was considerably worse: instead of presiding over the end of a recession, he had presided over the beginning of one, and the economy was in free fall. Nonetheless, Reagan mounted an unapologetic defense of his economic ideology, combined with a harsh critique of his precedecessors.

We haven’t heard Obama’s SOTU yet. But the big news seems to be the spending freeze. What I hear from bat-squeaks is that it’s not a big deal on economic substance, and that admin officials hope it will clear the way for some modest job-creation efforts. We’ll see about that. Rhetorically, however, Obama is clearly, conspicuously endorsing his opponents’ world-view — which will buy him precisely nothing in return.

I don’t think I’m going to watch the SOTU; all indications are that it will be deeply, deeply depressing.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/a-tale-of-two-sotus/