That was his best SOTU speech of his Presidency. My reaction is the same as John Cole’s of Balloon Juice:
I gotta say, every time I get some one on one time with that guy, which is basically what the SOTU is- an opportunity for the President to speak to America, I just want to vote for him early and often. The contrast between Obama and the crowd of miscreants in the GOP running to replace him is just striking.
One of the things I found interesting is that if you are a political junkie, you will find the speech from Obama a little bit feistier than those who are casual observers of the political process. I caught the references to Solyndra and telling the Republicans to back off on that nonsense, I got the DADT references, and so forth.
But most of all, every time I hear him speak, I am still aware of all the things I disagree with him on, but think “That is a good man doing what he thinks is best.” That is really all you can ask for from someone, because as far as I can tell, I’m the only one who agrees with me 100% of the time. And as you all know, if you give me a week, I’ll disagree with myself.
We really don’t deserve him. We really don’t.
I also enjoyed the multiple digs at Romney, whom the White House clearly thinks will still be the GOP nominee this fall. But the way he wrapped tax fairness as patriotic (and it really is, because the selfish greed of the 1% is not in any way patriotic), for the first time making the Democratic case that if you give tax cuts to the wealthy you have to take away a hell of a lot from everyone else, was brilliant.