On Wednesday night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart made sure that everybody knew he did actually watch President Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night. Watch his takes of the speech and Republican response below. But the better part of the show was Stewart's post-game analysis of "the state of our president's relationship with Congress."
That union is not strong, Stewart said, and those strained relations are the subtext of Obama's decision to go around Congress whenever possible. He played Obama's announcement about issuing executive orders, then paraphrased the message: "With all due respect, f—k all y'all."
If Obama's strategy is to ignore Congress as much as possible, congressional Republicans are playing an ickier game, Stewart said. After showing Republican after Republican saying they would love for Obama to work with them to get stuff done, Stewart pronounced the let's-work-together schtick "total bullshit." He even worked out a long, involved description of how potent this particular pile of cow manure is.
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Even if you discount the horrible things House Republicans were tweeting during Obama's speech, and the fact that congressional Republicans have obstructed more legislation, filibustered more nominees, and made Congress less productive than any Congress in history, Stewart said, all you need to see through their act is the knowledge that even before Obama was sworn in for his first term, Republicans had vowed to block him at every turn to hurt him politically.
Pretending to want to work with Obama is a big game, a show for the cameras, Stewart said. But when the cameras are off (or are thought to be off), you get less touchy-feeliness and more antics like Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) threatening to throw a NY1 reporter off the "f—king balcony" of the Capitol rotunda. (It's kind of a forced transition, but let's roll with it.) To be fair, Stewart said, "I will throw you off this f—king balcony" is "a relatively standard and traditional Staten Island goodbye."
The worst thing of all, Stewart said, was that Grimm went after a NY1 reporter — which leads to an animated, not-totally-insincere love note to the New York cable news channel. You mess with NY1 again, he warned Grimm, "we're coming after you. Because if it wasn't for the greatness of NY1, we could have canceled our Time Warner subscriptions a long time ago."
Stewart's review of the State of the Union address is less dramatic. He was unimpressed with Obama's pacing, vague goals, or tone with Congress: It was like "he had recently taken a course at the Learning Annex on passive aggression for Jewish mothers."
Predictably, Stewart was even less enamored with the GOP's response to Obama's big speech — well, its four responses. He wrapped up his analyses with this gem: "So to sum up the 2014 State of the Union: A litany of vague pledges, a justified venting of frustration with Congress, and capping it off, the world's shittiest Republican open mic night."
Over at the Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert took a break from his week-long Super Bowl (or "Superb Owl") extravaganza to answer the question I think we've all been wondering: Just who was Joe Biden pointing at during the State of the Union, in the goofy moment that launched 1,000 gifs? Watch:
