…20! AB takes the title with a bid of 19. What I find most interesting about the speech is not the number of references to terror (I actually thought it would be a bit higher), but this new reference to the President’s critics as “isolationists”. Suzzane Nossel has it right when she remarks that this is “pure hogwash” and a “strawman“.

Clearly the administration is trying to propogate a new frame for their opponents–a clever strategy. Hopefully this frame can be adequately rebutted but as we have seen over the years people tend to believe the first thing they hear, regardless of whether there is any evidence to support the claim (the strong belief in a Hussein-9/11 link as late as Feb 2005 is still astonishing). Since I qualify as an opponent of the administration’s policies (well, a significant number of them) I guess I need to get to work. More to come…

Filed as: State of the Union