The Corner

A Bizarre, Contradictory State of the Union Falters after Strong Start on Ukraine

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President Joe Biden delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., March 1, 2022.

Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool via Reuters

Joe Biden’s first official State of the Union address started strong; he spent the first twelve minutes talking about Ukraine, on which there is a surprising amount of bipartisan consensus. The Ukrainian ambassador was present, and many members of Congress from both parties were wearing blue and yellow or otherwise adorned with Ukrainian flags and symbols. Probably the most memorable line was Biden’s vow to defend “every single inch” of NATO territory.

It went downhill once he got to the state of our union, on which Biden rambled on for another hour. He hectored Congress to pass a bunch of bills that it has already rejected. He proposed to lower the costs of various things by just calling for them to cost less. He called the infrastructure bill “the single biggest investment in history” and declared, “We’re done talking about infrastructure weeks. We’re going to have an infrastructure decade.” You could tell the pandemic is really and truly over when we saw a return to Democrats demonizing the pharma companies that gave us life-saving vaccines.

Dan McLaughlin

About the Author

Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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