Grading the State of the Union

I have already voiced my personal view of Obama's State of the Union address. Here is what some other sources have said:

1) The AP said that Obama's speech was a recycling of ideas that did not get passed in the first three years of Obama's term. Indeed, the AP pointed out that some of Obama's ideas could not even get through Congress when the Democrats had lopsided majorities in both houses. Here is the topic sentence from the AP: "It was a wish list, not a to-do list."

2) The Washington Times said that Obama took credit for saving the auto industry. Indeed, Obama mentioned GM, Chrysler and Ford. Of course, Ford took no money from the government; it saved itself with no help from Obama. For Chrysler and GM, team Obama arranged for the government to throw in about 65 billion dollars only then to give up and let both companies go bankrupt. Then Obama pressured those who were entitled to payments from GM and Chrysler to give up those claims in favor of Obama's buddies at the UAW. Thousands of small businesses, the GM and Chrysler dealers, were put out of business. All of the employees at those dealerships lost everything. Thousands of people who were owed money by GM and Chrysler took major losses as well; many were forced into bankruptcy as a result. In the end, Chrysler ended up no longer being owned by Americans. GM is still owned by the government and the union mostly. So for all those billions, Obama just protected some union benefits at the cost of tens of thousands of businesses and jobs. This was a success?

3) The Weekly Standard actually released a compilation of moments in the speech where Obama just repeated what he had said during the last two State of the Union addresses. Not only were the ideas not new; even the language was the same.