The Only Important Part of Obama's Speech Was a Salmon Joke
How did President Obama rally the nation last night with his Newt Gingrich-lifted slogan, "Winning the Future"? Are inspired 12-year-olds across the nation already building electric cars from algae? Perhaps. But mostly, people just remember Obama's "salmon" joke.
NPR asked State of the Union watchers to describe the speech in three words. They received over 4,000 responses and plugged them into the word cloud, above. "Salmon" was the takeaway. In case you're lucky and haven't been reading the Internet or watching television for a while, here's the line in Obama's speech about evil government regulations that he wants to fix:
"The Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they're in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them when they're in saltwater," Obama said. "I hear it gets even more complicated once they're smoked." That last line drew big laughs from lawmakers in the Capitol.
Where's the joke? He forgot the punchline about impending layoffs and salary freezes at the Commerce and Interior departments.
