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Hi, this is Josh Marshall and this is the Josh Marshall podcast we're coming off last night state of the union address.

I guess it's you know there's always that thing where I guess it's his it's always unclear to me whether it's the second or the third since you have that kind of first state of the union that a president does that is kind of the housewarming.

Right, I don't I'm not sure they call it a state of the they don't write it's just sort of the kickoff speech or whatever.

But you know I I wrote a you know a Kate and I in our in our different sections of the site were both basically live blogging the events last night and I did a kind of a sum up afterwards.

I found it you know I always am a little trepidacious about being too gushy and as I said in what I wrote last night.

I don't like watching state of the union addresses.

I find them like a mix of tedious and stressful because you know what's going to happen is there going to be this if is there going to be that and in the nature of what I do.

I have to kind of analyze it you know was this good was that good and in most cases there just kind of like yeah what the president said all the stuff that he says and you know there was this one time where this happened and someone cheered and was he inspiring enough and where the sort of the feel good guests up in the up in the box good enough and all that kind of stuff and and.

You know in most cases it kind of just totally doesn't matter and by matter I mean is it going to change the trajectory.

Of the political moment is it going to change the next election all this kind of stuff I mean they tend to kind of there was I think I think I think it was Kate who showed me a tweet or something or maybe something from a newsletter one of the pod save American newsletters last night in one of.

Obama speech writers basically described it as something like you know high floor low ceiling like it's it's a very bounded thing right president standing you know he's got everybody's got good speech writers president stands up there and he reads the speech and kind of like.

As long as he doesn't throw up you know I mean how bad can it be right he reads the speech and but it's also how good can it be because.

He's not going to introduce to you that he just got a PhD in nuclear physics you know you know who he is so it's all kind of bounded and yet last night I ended up saying to me it was the best state of the union address I've ever seen and I've been watching them for more than 40 years and when I say that I don't mean that as I just said it's kind of it's not the highest bar.

Right I mean we know that bill Clinton sort of.

Notoriously gave these long laundry list speeches that reporters hated but over the eight years of his presidency.

The press realize that the public liked it.

You know he's just talking about on this program that program you know kind of informational and stuff like that and Barack Obama obviously a great orator.

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