"Republicans have plans," Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers said in the
official Republican response to the State of the Union address. Lots of plans!
Plans that focus on jobs first without more spending, government bailouts, and red tape [...]
We have plans to improve our education and training systems so you have the choice to determine where your kids go to school...so college is affordable...and skills training is modernized. [...]
As Republicans, we advance these plans every day ...
What are those plans? In a speech that mentioned two of the jobs she held growing up and what music her son dances to, McMorris Rodgers didn't get around to actually saying anything substantive about those plans. Republicans would like for people to have jobs and for the economy to expand. How? "One manufacturing job, nursing degree and small business at a time." That's ... aiming a little low, maybe, for the legislature of the world's largest economy.
But while she was low on the substance, McMorris Rodgers is benefiting from what George W. Bush might have called "the soft bigotry of low expectations." So disastrous have recent Republican State of the Union responses been that this bit of fluff delivered in the manner of someone reading a children's book looked good by comparison.
Here's why: She didn't grab for water or go Jindal-awkward. It was a deliberately light speech delivered by rare elected R woman ldr.
— @costareports
That's the standard: She didn't make herself a laughingstock, so it's a win! And as a bonus, you don't even have to try to forget what she said, because she didn't actually say anything of substance.