Last night, I tweeted that I would read the State of the Union speech instead of watching it on TV, and give myself two hours of my life that would otherwise have been wasted. It turned out to be an easy read, since for the third year in a row, it was written at the eighth-grade level — but that wasn’t the only aspect of the speech that was oddly familiar.  As the RNC shows in this clever video, not only did Barack Obama fail to provide a fresh look at fresh issues, he practically read the same speech from the last two years:

SOTU speeches don’t change much in style from one year to the next.  They are almost always campaign speeches, filled with wish lists and self-congratulatory nonsense.  The only one I found different to any significant degree was 2002’s SOTU speech, coming just months after 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan.  Otherwise, every President’s SOTU speeches follows a very predictable pattern:

1. The State of the Union is strong.
2. Applause.
3. It’s stronger because I’m up here and you’re not.
4. Applause.
5. Attack the Supreme Court [Obama only].
6. Here’s why my political party is awesome.
7. Applause from one side of room.
8. Here’s why the other party is a bunch of doody-heads.
9. Applause from the same side of the room.
10. Here’s a program I want you to pass.
11. Applause.
12. Here’s an Ordinary Average Guy whose story should convince you to pass my program.
13. Television shot of Ordinary Average Guy.
14. Applause.
15. Repeat steps 6-14 about 874 times.
16. Here’s a couple more reasons why I’m awesome.
17. Applause.
18. Opposition party then offers this in response (language warning):

These evenings are always reruns to a large extent.  Usually, though, a President takes some effort to come up with a new way to say the same old BS. In this case, perhaps Obama should have followed the example set by Thomas Jefferson and literally mailed in his speech if he was going to do it figuratively.