SOTU

 I guess I missed quite the donnybrook at the State of the Union last night. Like Josh Marshall, I find them tedious, but I guess I should have known that the Chaos Caucus would make things...interesting.

This "fact check" column shows the cognitive rot at the heart of American news coverage. The SOTU is both a constitutional requirement and a political event. Biden was making a case for his administration. If he lied, he should be called on that. The column is...I couldn't finish it, but the common refrain was "this needs context." Basically, this was a call to turn a talking point into a position paper. Why? In what possible universe is it important to qualify or contextualize a SOTU address? So many comments were "Well, what Biden said was technically true, in the sense that is factually accurate, but if you look at it this way, it could be false."

Here's a great example:

WHAT WAS SAID

“We’re finally giving Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices.”

This needs context. The Inflation Reduction Act, which Mr. Biden signed into law in August, does fulfill Democrats’ long-held goal of empowering Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs directly with pharmaceutical makers. But the law has limits. The negotiation provisions do not kick in until 2026, when the federal government may begin negotiating the price of up to 10 medicines. The number of drugs subject to negotiation will rise over time. 

I suppose that you think you're being very clever and savvy by pointing out the technical ways that what Biden said is both accurate and not accurate, when really he's just being accurate. Biden does not claim that we are currently negotiating prices. He says we will. Because of a bill he passed. 

Meanwhile, the GQP is screaming at him from the cheap seats. That would seem to be the story here.