​Last night, President Barack Obama gave his eighth and final State of the Union address. He was optimistic about the nation’s future, angry with the current Republican presidential hopefuls and admitted personal failings of his own. Here’s what to read. First, The Full Address Tonight marks the eighth year I’ve come here to report on the State of the Union. And for this final one, I’m going to try to make it shorter. I know some of you are antsy to get back to Iowa. [ Medium ] And For Those Short On Time, The Address In Four Minutes With that out of the way, here’s what the pundits thought. An Annotated Transcript A handful of Washington Post political reporters dove into the president’s own words to suss out what he said, and what he actually meant. Politico reporters take a close look at some of the claims Obama made over the course of his speech.

The verdict? Mostly true. [ Politico ] As the economic crisis has receded, it has created a space that cultural anxieties now fill. Conservatives now focus on immigration in a way they haven’t since Pete Wilson and Pat Buchanan ran for president in 1996. Democrats stress gun control to a degree they haven’t since the early Clinton years. Terrorism has returned to center stage not merely because of the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, but because fear of economic calamity no longer looms so large. As a wartime president, he has resembled his hated predecessor George W Bush, in execution if not design. He will leave office as Bush did: passing on to his successor two wars – one the longest in American history, the other a reboot of the conflict he promised to end. Unlike in previous speeches, Obama did not […]

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