The “State of the Union” is the address presented by the President of the United States to a joint session of the United States Congress, typically delivered annually.
The address not only reports on the condition of the nation but also allows presidents to outline their legislative agenda, for which they need the cooperation of Congress, and their national priorities.
The address fulfills rules in Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, requiring the President to periodically give Congress information on the “State of the Union” and recommend any measures that he believes is necessary and expedient.
During most of the country’s first century, the President primarily just submitted a written report to Congress. With the advent of radio and television, the address is now broadcast live across the country on most television networks.
As I was intently listening to President Obama’s arrogant “Jekyll and Hyde” routine during his 2014 State of the Union Speech I couldn’t help to notice the “similarities” of his address with the one I remembered hearing “back in 2007″ by George W. Bush.
It was an “eerily” familiar theme of “hope and opportunity.”
There were lines like “Our job is to help Americans build a future of hope and opportunity, a future of hope and opportunity begins with a growing economy, a future of hope and opportunity requires that all citizens have affordable and available health care, extending opportunity and hope depends on a stable supply of energy,” all plagiarized from the 2007 State of the Union Speech of George W. Bush.
It appears Obama’s lines “were directly lifted” from Bush’s 2007 address and both speeches “concluded” with stories about “veterans” who had been “wounded” in combat.
A “transcript” of Obama’s speech is available here. Bush’s 2007 speech can be read here. In contrast, here is Senator Mike Lee’s response to SOTU.
This isn’t the “first time” Obama has been accused of “plagiarism” in a “State of the Union” address.
In 2008 Hillary Clinton threw one of her toughest lines in discussing allegations that Barack Obama has lifted some of his best lines from other people. “I think if your candidacy is going to be about words, then words should be your own,” she charged, “It’s not change you can believe in, it’s change you can Xerox.”
Obama has acknowledged that he has used similar lines offered by political ally and friend Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, but he said plagiarism allegations is “where we get into silly season.”
“The notion that I have plagiarized from one of my national co-chairs who gave me the line and suggested that I use it is silly,” he said, countering that dismissing his speeches as just words “diminishes how important it is to speak to the American people directly.”
Obama tried to play the upper hand in the dispute, suggesting it was nothing more than a political attack. “We shouldn’t spend time tearing each other down, we should be trying to build the country up,” he said. Clinton was undeterred. “If you look at the YouTube of these videos, it does raise questions,” she said.
In 2011, Alvin Felzenberg, presidential scholar and former spokesman for the 9/11 Commission, wrote an op-ed for U.S. News and World Report stating the Obama’s speech “contained enough recycled ideas and lines lifted from speeches of others to make historians wince.”
A former speechwriter for George W. Bush, Marc Thiessen, told Megyn Kelly of Fox News, “Barack Obama has gone from blaming George W. Bush to plagiarizing George W. Bush.”
Now Barry can “add” this speech to the many things he “inherited” from former President George W. Bush.
And, as usual, Obama “covered” all his bases. If the “SOTU” is praised he gets the “credit.” If it fails to convince the American people, it’s Bush’s “fault.”
It’s a “win-win” situation for Barack Hussein Sotero Obama.
“You didn’t write that speech. Someone else made that happen!”
As a footnote, this year’s SOTU address was the “least” watched and had the “lowest” viewership of “any” State of the Union in the last “fourteen” years.
According to Nielsen, roughly 33.3 million watched Obama’s address. Not since 31.5 million watched President Bill Clinton’s last State of the Union address in 2000 have so few tuned in to watch the speech. After Obama’s joint address to Congress was seen by 52.4 million people in 2009, the audience for his State of the Union address has steadily declined, with his 2010 (48.1 million), 2011 (42.8 million), 2012 (37.8 million), 2013 (33.5 million), and 2014 (33.3 million) respectively.
