I recorded President Obama's...

...State of the Union address last night and started watching it at around 9:00. I gave up about two-thirds of the way through, though, and went to bed. It was boring.

I woke up this morning and read Andrew Sullivan's take. And I couldn't agree more (my emphasis):

I was hoping for a vision. I was hoping for real, strategic reform. What we got was one big blizzard of tax deductions, wrapped in a populist cloak. It was treading water. I suspect this will buoy liberal spirits, but anger the right and befuddle the independents. It definitely gives the Republican case against Obama as a big government meddler more credibility. I may be wrong - but the sheer cramped, tedious, mediocre micro-policies he listed were uninspiring to say the least.

We voted for Obama; now we find we got another Clinton. The base will like this. I'm not sure independents will. As performance, he did as well as he could with the thin material he had in his hands. As a speech, I thought it was the worst of his SOTUs, when he really needed his best.

The president had a chance to offer an alternative vision to the craziness coming out of the Republican debates. And he blew it. He'll have other chances between now and November, but he has to do better than this.