2013 State of the Union: Media Reaction

State of the Union reaction: Media Gives Obama Thumbs Up (Politico)

President Barack Obama delivered an “effective” State of the Union address that took an emotional turn at the end with the emphasis on gun violence, members of the media said after his speech on Tuesday.

CBS’s Bob Schieffer called the speech much “better” than Obama’s inaugural address, which he said had come across as a “partisan lecture.”

“I mean, the president’s inaugural address had sort of a partisan lecture tone about it,” Schieffer said after Obama wrapped. “This was a political speech, but it was well-written, it had a beginning, a middle and an end.”

The speech, he said, “had some music to it, as they used to say.”

“He coined a few phrases in there, talked about the unfinished task before us, sort of reminiscent of what Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address, but all in all I thought this was a much better speech than we heard on his inauguration,” Schieffer said.

Fox News’ Charles Krauthammer, meanwhile, called the State of the Union address “effective — it did what he had to do.” The speech also placed Obama’s “activist government” philosophy at the center, Krauthammer said.