Democratic Response by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi
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James Joyner | Wednesday, February 2, 2005 |
I guess I can live blog something tonight. . .
Does Reid actually think anyone gives a rip about his childhood in Searchlight? Otherwise, he comes across as amiable if dorky. Most of his speech, though, is a recitation of campaign rhetoric that failed to sway the voters three months ago. Groundhog Day, indeed.
Nancy Pelosi’s delivery is incredibly slow. She’s apparently been taking speech lessons from Steve Forbes. She’s not very effective at reading a teleprompter. That, combined with her monotone delivery and insistence on pausing between every word makes paying . . . attention. . . very . . . hard.
It’s unclear why Pelosi was chosen, let alone tasked with the foreign policy part of the speech. Bush was just resoundingly re-elected with national security at the center of the campaign. Why would what she thinks be worthy of note?
If this is the best the Democrats have to offer, they’re toast.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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- None Found
- Michelle Malkin linked with STATE OF THE UNION: QUICK NOTES
- The Political Teen linked with Responses
- The MUSC Tiger linked with SOTU
- basil's blog linked with State Of The Onion
And can we call this a "response" in any way? It's like a bizarro SOTU address where the Democrats get to say what they would have said had we not rejected them in November.
She needs to get off the Botox train.
Her rhetoric is also completely asinine. Brit Hume is now tearing the dems a new one as fairly as he can...
Anyone considering running for president should stay far, far away from giving that rebuttal speech, regardless of party.
* channelling Homer Simpson * Donkey toast. Mmmmmmmm!
From Harry Reid's response:
"Too many of the President's economic policies have left Americans and American companies struggling. And after we worked so hard to eliminate the deficit, his policies have added trillions to the debt - in effect, a `birth tax' of $36,000 on every child that is born."
That strikes me as very significant. It has long bugged the hell out me that starting with Reagan conservatives have always chosen borrowed money as the way to finance their tax cuts. This means my child will eventually have to pay for their irresponsibility. And who will my child pay this money to? Mostly to foreigners.!!! The money, principle and interest, does not even go back into our own economy. It makes me absolutely furious. It's like a tax my child will be paying to the Chinese. And by the time he is grown and paying taxes to China, will China be a friend or foe?
Pelosi's delivery is not only slow, every word that has the sylable "it" gets emphasis: sek-ur-IT-ee and in-her-IT-ed. It's as if she is overpronouncing everything. Weird.
Listening to the two--okay, I quit about 5 minutes into Pelosi's ramble--I had the distinct impression that somehow GW had gotten his hands on their speeches. Every "salient" point they made had already been addressed in the SOTU. They were left raising questions that had already been answered.
Guess they can't be trusted to go ad lib.
"It's unclear why Pelosi was chosen..."
She's proven to have the venom the Dems are looking for.
ken says, "It has long bugged the hell out me that starting with Reagan conservatives have always chosen borrowed money as the way to finance their tax cuts."
You don't "finance" tax cuts. Unless you believe that the government owns the money to begin with. Simply put: tax cuts don't "cost" anything. And oftentimes a cut in tax rates will actually increase tax intake. Smaller taxed amounts + more economic activity = greater tax take. This has happened every time the federal government has cut tax rates.
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