Sussing out the SOTU [update 8]

Sarah Palin told Sean Hannity “the fact checkers … are going to be quite busy” after President Zero’s State of the Union passing-the-buck speech last night.

They were.  Here’s Cato’s fact-checkers now.

And here’s the New Zealand Herald’s cartoonist:

I think even my American readers will appreciate that.

UPDATE 1: And the person who bears a lion’s share of responsible for the waves of economic carnage which the ObaMessiah is failing to turn back, Ben Bernanke, still awaits reappointment to the job of Fed Chairman. Alex Epstein of the Ayn Rand Institute reckons Bernanke needs to get real.  He is “the last person qualified to address” the carnage he and his former boss did so much to create. “Get Real,” says Epstein at Fox News, “Bernanke Didn’t ‘Save’ the Economy”:

    “Because his economic philosophy hasn’t changed, his celebrated policies are simply a rehash of the folly [in 2001 to 2003] that created the housing bubble. The Fed is printing more money, lending it more cheaply than Greenspan did, and encouraging Americans (and their government) to borrow and spend far more than they can afford. That such a policy has laid the foundation for an enduring “recovery” has all the plausibility of President Bush’s 2003 ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner.”

UPDATE 2: Too late!

Senate Reconfirms; Bernanke Says, "Come to the Bar, Drinks Are On Dollar-Holders"

Still, as C.W. at Krazy Economy suggested before the reconfirmation was announced, maybe we should be grateful for small mercies. “Obama's appointee would be worse."

UPDATE 3: Cato’s Chris Moody has more good post-SOTU links (which I’m sure he won’t mind me pasting here):

• Cato experts give Obama’s State of the Union a video fisking.
  
  

• Are we watching the History Channel or something?  Because this new president sure does sound a lot like the old one.

• Time for the SOTU fact check:  Cato experts put some of President Obama’s core State of the Union claims to the test. Here’s what they found.

• Flashback to February 2009: Gene Healy on how “the president talks too much.“

• During this year’s SOTU, President Obama criticized the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case. Today’s podcast examines the Court’s ruling.

UPDATE 4: The Republican’s chosen official response to President Zero’s  SOTU speech came from new Virginia governor Bob McDonnell. It was wet, it was wooden, but it shows Republicans what like to at least look like they’re listening to Tea Party types. (Quin Hillyer calls it “by far the most effective SOTU response I have EVER heard in 30 years of listening to these things.” Crikey.)

But no matter how wet and wooden it was, and how little McDonnell really means any of what he says – you suspect much of it is said more to attract back Tea Party Independents than out of any real conviction --wouldn’t you like to hear John Boy Key invoking Thomas Jefferson, talking about freedom and liberty, and the urgency of reducing the size of government.

In A Declaration Of Independents Paul Hsieh said, "Politicians had better start listening to the independent voters who want "the Democrats out of their pockets and the Republicans out of their bedrooms." Maybe some of them are.  A little.

But this time, “can independents finally make it clear that they are for limited government?"

UPDATE 5: The Ayn Rand Center (ARC) summarises the State of the Union speech in one sentence.  That sentence:

“We need to rise above fear, hesitation, and partisan politics--to give the government all the power it needs to solve all our problems.

The President named dozens of problems in America, notes the ARC’s Alex Epstein, and not once suggested that individual rights, liberty, or freedom were the solution. From a quick reading of the speech, some statistics:

“Number of times President Obama said ‘I’: 105--mainly pushing for the government programs he seeks to pass.

“Number of times President Obama said ‘individual rights’: 0.

“Number of times President Obama said ‘liberty’: 0.

“Number of times President Obama said ‘freedom’: 1--but it was freedom for Afghanistan.”

UPDATE 6: That wasn’t a SOTU address, says Jeff Perren, it a STFU address:

    “Last night, Barack Obama decided to skip the SOTU Address and give instead the STFU Address. He told the American people in essence to STFU, that everything he's been doing the past year is the right thing, and then some, and that anybody who disagrees is an obstructionist, opposed to what's best for Americans.”

UPDATE 7: What if the president were to “discover the writings of people like Henry Hazlitt, Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, and Ayn Rand?”  In that unlikely event, Richard Ebeling has the very piece he would have delivered, called,

 "The Address Obama Should Have Given - For a Change to Freedom."

UPDATE 8: There’s definitely been a tipping point in the global warming charade.  From Climate Realists comes this clip from the SOTU speech:

 

    “Watch as Obama is laughed at during his state of the union address after referring to the ‘overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change.’ First the audience laughs, then Pelosi, next Biden and finally Obama himself smirks at the insanity of his remark.”