State of the Union Roundup

"How does one critique a speech like tonight's?" asks Bryan Preston.

President Barack Obama spent more than an hour sweeping between a laundry list of proposals, anecdotes to hid his failures, and what can only be called lies about the state of the union. ...

Obama stood before a joint session of Congress and told them that he was done with them. He told them that he intended to sideline them whenever he can. And the Democrats elected to that body, who are supposed to defend its constitutional responsibilities and powers, cheered. It was a ghastly sight, unworthy of our nation’s station as the world’s oldest functioning republic. ...

Obama seemed at times to be truly put out with whoever has been president these past five years. A majority of Americans would agree with him on that at this point.

The Washington Post's Fact Checker checked Mr. Obama's SOTU facts and calls into question a half-dozen of his more "fact-challenged claims." In similar fashion, Michael Cannon takes the president's Obamacare claims apart one by one and finds them lacking.

Scott Johnson found the president's speech "mind-numbing and soul-killing" and the response from the other side of the aisle less than encouraging:

Watching the muted reaction of Eric Cantor [R-VA] to Obama’s call for immigration reform made me think. House leadership must know how unpopular it is with those of us who make up the heart of the party. Taking it up is bad policy and worse politics. It would be a gratuitous act of self-destruction. Yet Cathy McMorris Rodgers [R-WA] seems to agree that “it’s time.” In her response to Obama’s address, she said this:

And yes, it’s time to honor our history of legal immigration. We’re working on a step-by-step solution to immigration reform by first securing our borders and making sure America will always attract the best, brightest, and hardest working from around the world.

As for Republicans, you have to wonder. Does anybody really know what time it is?

Johnson's question may be on the minds of a lot of weary Americans who live beyond the Beltway. Only about 38 million watched (down from 43 million in 2013 and 48 million in 2012) — the same number of viewers who tuned in for President George W. Bush's final SOTU address.
 
UPDATE: Only 33.3 million people on 13 networks watched the SOTU address, according to Neilsen ratings — or about 20.7% of American households. "That was the lowest figure since former President Bill Clinton's final address to Congress in 2000, which had 31,478,000 viewers."