Then he proceeded to deliver what may forever be the longest State of the Union address in history -- 81 long minutes of policy prescriptions large and small. It was interminable, a seeming embarrassment. That night I spoke to a top White House adviser to the President. "We're getting killed on this, aren't we?" he asked. "We're dead."
But the public didn't agree with the Beltway assessments of Clinton's 1995 State of the Union address, even the ones from within his own White House. The reaction was favorable.
In other words, that speech was like, you know, so boring. He talked about policy and stuff. Nobody I know wants to hear that stuff.