President Biden delivers his second State of the Union tackle on Tuesday. Anticipate reward irrespective of how badly he does; in any case, even final yr’s speech was touted by liberals as “good,” “very unifying” and a “return to normalcy,” with straight-faced reporters insisting “it didn’t have a partisan edge to it.”

CNN’s Van Jones sounded precisely just like the alumnus he’s of the Obama-Biden White Home, shamelessly spinning: “Uncle Joe is again….I used to be impressed….I’m proud tonight now we have a pacesetter like him. I’m proud tonight.”

For a touch of what these outdoors the liberal bubble thought, Nationwide Evaluate dominated Biden’s 2022 speech an “incoherent tackle,” one “delivered with nothing resembling panache or fundamental diction.” The New York Submit stated it was “an unserious speech for lethal critical instances.” By any measure, the optimistic evaluations from liberal reporters have been an undeserved present.

But Biden can by no means hope to garner the gushing reward the media habitually lavished on his onetime boss, former President Barack Obama. From his first speech to Congress in 2009 to his last State of the Union in 2016, liberal reporters have been at all times thrilled each time they have been privileged to listen to their hero delivering predictable liberal platitudes from the effectively of the Home of Representatives.

Right here’s a roll name of journalists melting earlier than Obama’s rhetoric:

February 2009: “We Have a President Once more!”

■ “It was his debut and he wowed us. That’s the working headline from final night time’s presidential tackle to Congress.”
— MSNBC’s Chris Matthews opening Hardball, February 25, 2009.

■ “It made me really feel fairly good. I assumed it was an excellent speech….You understand, a buddy of mine stated, ‘Oh my God, now we have a President once more!’ Now, in some methods, that’s not truthful to Bush, however that’s the best way you felt. You felt this was a man who was completely in cost.”
— NPR’s Nina Totenberg discussing President Obama’s tackle to Congress, February 27, 2009 Inside Washington.

September 2009: “A Contact of Greatness”

■ “It was, to say the least, a broad and forward-thinking speech. On the rhetoric and the phrasing and the pacing and the design of the speech itself, there appears to have been a contact of greatness.”
— MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann after Obama concluded his speech to Congress pitching ObamaCare, September 9, 2009.

■ “This might need been probably the most emotional speech I’ve seen President Obama give….I don’t suppose I’ve ever seen him get caught up emotionally in the best way he did in these last couple of paragraphs, the place there was even a catch in his voice — not even in his Inaugural Handle again in January. That is very near President Obama’s coronary heart.”
— ABC’s George Stephanopoulos following Obama’s speech, September 9, 2009.

2010: He’s Prepared for Mount Rushmore

■ CBS’s Jeff Greenfield: “This was very very similar to he was within the marketing campaign. He went 5 or ten minutes and not using a single applause line. He stated ‘let me let you know how we received into this mess,’ he reached out and stated to individuals ‘I’m not giving up my concept that we will change the tone of politics.’…”
Anchor Katie Couric: “Effectively, as [New York Times columnist] Tom Friedman stated, ‘He’s higher at making us smarter than making us offended.’”
— From CBS’s stay protection following the State of the Union, January 27, 2010.

■ “If presidential management have been solely about giving speeches, the jackhammers would already be at work on Mount Rushmore. I assumed the man dominated the room, used humor, occupied the center floor….In lots of, some ways, this is among the most conservative speeches {that a} Democratic president has given since, I feel, the center of Invoice Clinton’s time.”
— Newsweek’s Howard Fineman on MSNBC after President Obama’s State of the Union tackle, January 27, 2010.

2011: Applauding “Reaganesque” State of the Union

■ “Stuffed with sunny optimism, very Reaganesque, on and on about American exceptionalism in lots of, many situations and stuffed with Kennedyesque encouragement to interrupt a brand new frontier. That Sputnik second was exceptional….”
— ABC’s Christiane Amanpour throughout protection of the State of the Union, January 25, 2011.

■ “In some ways, you felt this speech tonight was nearly downright Reaganesque. There have been some comparisons made in latest days about how this may very well be his Reagan second.”
— CBS Information anchor Katie Couric throughout her community’s stay protection, January 25, 2011.

2012: “Constructive and Optimistic in Each Method”

■ “Any viewer watching this, regardless of private prejudices professional or con, or partisan variations, would take a look at this speech and it might be very arduous to say that he’s apologizing for America. This was resoundingly optimistic and optimistic in each manner….”
— NBC’s Andrea Mitchell disputing Mitt Romney’s characterization of Obama’s speech, stay protection January 24, 2012.

■ “His speech was equal to Ronald Reagan’s ‘Morning in America’ speech, which was a optimistic outlook on the world and I feel that Republicans can embrace him due to Ronald Reagan. It is vitally much like that. It’s optimistic, it’s optimistic….From his mouth to God’s ears, they need to begin cooperating and get this nation going and cease this gridlock as a result of it’s not patriotic!”
— Co-host Pleasure Behar on ABC’s The View, January 25, 2012.

2013: Obama Made Stunning Music

■ “This was a speech that had some music to it, as they used to say. He coined a couple of phrases in there, talked in regards to the ‘unfinished job earlier than us,’ type of harking back to what Lincoln stated within the Gettysburg Handle.”
— Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer throughout CBS’s post-State of the Union protection, February 12, 2013.

2014: Don’t Overlook That Obama Is Fantastic

■ “With all of the discuss in regards to the President getting into this era the place ‘lame duck’ has been tossed round, this era in his second time period, it was David Remnick in The New Yorker journal, a protracted, lengthy article, a protracted, sustained-access interview with the President over many stops, who put a sentence in the midst of the article to reset everybody’s expectations and remind us what it took to get right here. And I’m going to cite from it. ‘A President who in any case,’ quote, ‘gained two phrases as solely 17 of 44 presidents have, and did in order a black man with an African father and a peculiar identify one consonant away from that of the world’s most infamous terrorist.’ One thing I feel everyone forgets within the day-to-day sport right here.”
— NBC’s Brian Williams throughout stay protection of the State of the Union, January 28, 2014.

2015: Midway Between a Liberal and a Extremely-Liberal

■ “I feel it’s the very best speech he’s made in awhile….He appeared extra relaxed and extra comfy than I can recall in a very long time….This was a State of the Union speech that had extra hovering rhetoric in it. It was uplifting on the finish.”
— CBS’s Bob Schieffer throughout his community’s stay protection of the State of the Union, January 20, 2015.

■ “The financial message, additionally, is so politically in tune with the place the broad spectrum of the American individuals are. He’s laying out themes which can be equidistant between the Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton branches of the Democratic Occasion.”
— Correspondent Andrea Mitchell throughout NBC’s stay protection of the State of the Union speech, January 20, 2015.

2016: So Sensible, Like George Washington

■ “It jogged my memory — I imply, that is going to sound ridiculous, like I at all times take into consideration George Washington, nevertheless it jogged my memory of George Washington’s Farewell Handle.”
— Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin assessing Obama’s last State of the Union speech on PBS’s Charlie Rose, January 12, 2016.

■ PBS’s Charlie Rose: “I wish to elevate two huge points about him which can be fascinating to me and, Jon, all of you. How good is he? What’s the sense of — is he one among our brightest presidents?”
Longtime Newsweek editor Jon Meacham: “Completely. I feel so and I feel it has the pluses and minuses.
Rose: “I’m asking from an actual standpoint.”
Meacham: “It’s a eager analytical intelligence.”
— Alternate on Charlie Rose, January 12, 2016.

For extra examples from our flashback collection, which we name the NewsBusters Time Machine, go right here.