the republicans official response to barack obama s state of the union was essentially a new version of the stump speech of the guy who just lost the presidential election to barack obama. and the house that is the emotional centerpiece of the speech turns out is a house for sale. and the criticism of the criticism of the speech is not based on the president s speech at all. and they had him vote no on the violence against women act with 21 other republican guys right before he gave this speech. and they ran a second republican response again as well after they ran this one. it had the same eyeball problem as the other republican speech had the previous time when they did it. and then of course there was this. false choices like the one the president laid out tonight. if anybody everybody asks you to give the republican party s response to the state of the union just say no. seriously. i care about you. just say no. it s not a good gig. joining us now steve kornacki, host of msnbc
presidential election to barack obama. and the house that is the emotional centerpiece of the speech turns out is a house for sale. and the criticism of the criticism of the speech is not based on the president s speech at all. and they had him vote no on the violence against women act with 21 other republican guys right before he gave this speech. and they ran a second republican response again as well after they ran this one. it had the same eyeball problem as the other republican speech had the previous time when they did it. and then of course there was this. false choices like the one the president laid out tonight. if anybody everybody asks you to give the republican party s response to the state of the union just say no. seriously. i care about you. just say no. it s not a good gig. joining us now steve kornacki, host of msnbc s the cycle and a senior writer for salon.com. thanks for being here tonight. thanks for having me. is marco rubio the victim of high expectatio
act. he and 21 other republican men in the united states senate voted no. then marco rubio got caught out once he started giving his speech in the easiest trap to get caught in when you have to give a response address. just minutes after the thing that you are responding to has ended, he anticipated things that he thought president obama would say in the state of the union. he wrote complaints in his own speech about things he thought president obama would say. but then when president obama did not actually say those things, mr. rubio did not adjust his speech to take out the complaints. so senator rubio in his response last night ended up complaining about things said by president obama that president obama actually did not say in the speech that everybody had just finished watching right before marco rubio got to take his turn. mr. rubio s whole windup was about how president obama had just spent his state of the union address defending big government and demanding even
i ve been talking for 35 years. i can probably fill some audio for you if you need me to. i think i m all right, as listening as i hold perfectly still. all right. you sound fantastic as always. thank you. all systems go. no problem, houston. all right, thank you, man. i appreciate it. and thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. ought to be more exciting than usual. let s see. president obama s state of the union address last night lasted almost exactly 60 minutes, with not quite 7,000 words. it was a little longer than average in terms of word count. the speech was interrupted 83 times for applause, according to a tally by the national journal. there was no notable disruption in the audience this year, no moment like a republican congressman yelling you lie the way congressman joe wilson did during the joint address to congress back in 2009 there was no moment like a supreme court justice muttering a rebuttal to the president from the rows up front the way justice
the speech itself. our free enterprise economy is the source of our middle class prosperity. but president obama, he believes it s the cause of our problems. i know free enterprise is on trial, and we have a president who really doesn t believe in the rights of people to do that. of course solar and wind energy should be a part of our energy portfolio. but god also blessed america with abundant coal, oil, and natural gas. i mean, he likes the wind and the solar, but he doesn t like the stuff that is under the ground, like coal and oil and natural gas. instead of wasting more taxpayer money on so-called clean energy companies like solyndra, let s open up more federal lands for safe and responsible exploration. they should have done more studying on solyndra and less studying on that drilling. i m going to open lands for exploration. de-romneyification failed. the republicans official response to barack obama s state of the union was essentially a new version of the stump