SOTU = Same Old Tired Utterances

Barack Obama and George W Bush might not have much in common, but you can certainly argue that their speechwriters do. One of the limitations of set-piece events such as the State of the Union is that, in the end, many of them are pretty similar. Certainly, you can bet that the same ideas will be flagged and flogged every year.

Perhaps that’s inevitable in these laundry-list speeches but if so then that’s another argument for a shorter, punchier, thematic address* that at least tries to do something different or be in some way memorable.

So, many thanks to Cato’s Tad DeHaven for compiling a list demonstrating how much of what we heard last night was much the same as much that we heard from George W Bush when he was in office. For instance:

“So we face big and difficult challenges. And what the American people hope – what they deserve – is for all of us, Democrats and Republicans, to work through our differences; to overcome the numbing weight of our politics.