If you’re playing a SOTU drinking game tonight (what an idea!), this one ought to be worth a drink or two. WLS:
President Obama’s State of the Union speech Tuesday evening is likely to be viewed as a reelection speech, and the president’s former chief of staff, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has some ideas about how the speech should be constructed.
The mayor told a panel at the University of Chicago that the president should say very little about his first term, and focus on what he would do in a second term. Emanuel said, “What you do with the first term is say, ‘I inherited a mess, I did what I could to stabilize it, and here’s what we’re gonna do.'”
Good idea. How long did George Bush spend blaming Bill Clinton for his problems? Was it three years? I’m assuming it was at least three years. Probably longer, since he’s evil and Obama is not evil. Everything is George Bush’s fault, except of course building the infrastructure that enabled Obama to kill Bin Laden.
And “Don’t talk about your first term, dude” is very good advice. In fact, Obama should probably start off by saying it’s his first SOTU and the last three years never happened. Maybe wave a magic wand to seal the deal.
Five-minute standing ovation.
(Hat tip: James Taranto)
P.S. He’s also going to “lay out his economic vision.” As if we haven’t been living through it.