My Reaction To Bachmann And Ryan

So Paul Ryan and Michele Bachmann took their best cracks at responding to the President of the United States and his State of the Union speech. I'll be the first one to say, it's nearly impossible to ever "win" against any President's speech, so they had a mountain to climb. I don't think either did climb it.

We'll start with Congressman Ryan, since he gave the official response. Basically, he endorsed his "Road Map." He only committed to preserving Social Security for those close to being in the system. He didn't back away from gutting the program out for younger people, or the same for Medicare. He proposed to destroy these programs, while reverting spending levels to 2008 marks. He claims this will be job creating, but in fact it's job killing. Ryan signaled little willingness to work on the Health Care law, and instead called for repeal again. All-in-all, his speech's tone was fine, but his specifics were very partisan, and meant to set a full opposition to the President.

Then there was Michele Bachmann. She spoke about tyranny, but didn't speak much to the camera (the TV one, the internet one she did).  Unlike Ryan, who attempted to at least sound like an adult, Bachmann clearly was appealing to her base in this speech, and tried to cast a good vs. evil look to it.

Basically, I think the GOP didn't get much out of these. Essentially, you saw what the Beltway Republicans want (Ryan) against what the grassroots want (Bachmann). Ultimately, these speeches never are what's remembered, and generally are meant only to provide a little more news for the junkies out there.