Boffo Box!

++ For a man, who recently said sometimes you have to hit a lot of singles, President Obama hit a lot of homers tonight. Andrew Sullivan gets a lot of the strength of tonight's speech in his live blogging,

++This is the man whom we love to see but was disrupted by crises--both foreign and domestic. He had the wind at his back and basically proclaimed the crises over and the time to turn the page to the future.

++It was one of his finer speeches laying down what is obvious but will spark righteous indignation tonight and tomorrow from the Republicans. His litany on middle-class economics was effective and stands the Democrats in good stead for the future. His case for his community college initiative was convincing. His picture of the challenges of the future to the economy was rooted in a pragmatism that has served him well but frustrated the hell out of his critics.

++His foreign policy section was the weakest in the speech. The broad principles sound but it's tough delivering this while there are covert operations going on in 102 countries this night. He slid past the issue of ISIS but clipped the Republicans on past comments on Putin. 

++He was good to mention torture since the GOP embrace it, even after the Torture Report. and correct to mention the need to close Gitmo. (on Gitmo, more awful things have appeared in the last few days, which I will try to comment on).

++He nicely avoided the whole NSA flap, except he will report on measures he has taken in consultation with civil libertarians in preserving privacy.

++In winding up, he slapped the Republicans down when they applauded his saying he has run in last campaign by responding "And I won two elections". This was not a man on defense. Then he recalled his No Red, No Blue America speech from the 2004 convention. 

++His soften tone and humility tried to evoke the "better angels" among the assembled that the Americans who overcame the Great Recession expected their politicians to perform better and get real things done. Nice try.

++It's time we turn the page.  You may never get to see him this way again. Basically, it was a speech by a man who believes he did what he was committed to do and that his ideas have prevailed to make America the leading edge of economic progress in the world and that if you only cooperated more we would have more progress. It's a speech by someone who says he achieved what he promised to do.

++I saw more standing ovations during this State of The Union than the past ones. The only grumbles I noticed had to do with his description of his policy of negotiating with Iran and his promise to veto any new sanctions bill. I thought the sentence about war being the last resort in all Americans' minds was an ad-lib. This was the least popular section of the speech.

++A funny lame duck. But remember Obama had a 50% approval rating tonight and George W. Bush had a 32% at the same point of his presidency. Also President Obama has a 50% approval rate to his audience at 16%.

++I like listening to President Obama unfiltered rather than have his words dissected by people like Sweeney Todd and the Beltway pundits.

++I'll wait  for morning to listen to the GOP response and their comments. Why spoil an uplifting end to an otherwise awful day.

++Sweet Dreams. It's Morning in America again.