RSS Feed MenuIn the spirit of the late William Safire, who popularized the White House acronym “SOTU” for the State of the Union speech, below is a list of words and phrases that are likely to appear in tonight’s speech. Arrange them 5×5 in a standard bingo format and play along at home to make the speech go faster. Usually, everyone’s a winner.
For the free space in the center, pick either “change” or “opportunity”
Middle class
“health insurance reform”
“_____ of the future”
Green jobs
Kennedy (any counts)
“Let me be clear”
Immigration
Afghanistan
Deficit
Iran
“Vice President Biden” (in the body of the speech)
“on my desk”
“our highest ideals”
Michelle/military families
Purpose/resolve
“one year ago”
“American Recovery and Reinvestment Act”
“banks should lend”
“excessive pay”
Foreclosures
“those who would do us harm”
“Attorney General Holder” (in lieu of “Secretary Napolitano”)
Olympics/Vancouver
An alternative, and more challenging, version of the game forces the players to pick which words and phrases will not be included in the speech. For instance, “Iraq,” “Maliki,” “Copenhagen,” “farmers,” “Secretary Geithner,” “China,” “Employee Free Choice Act,” “Guantanamo,” “systemic failure,” “criminal trials in civilian courts,” and “recent attempted terror attack in the skies over Detroit” might be good guesses.
sinz54 // Jan 27, 2010 at 12:06 pm
An alternative, and more challenging, version of the game forces the players to pick which words and phrases will not be included in the speech.
Here are some more things that Obama will NOT discuss in his SOTU speech:
Stimulus package
Public option
General Motors
Yemen
Nuclear power
JeninCT // Jan 27, 2010 at 8:49 pm
Great idea! I have my game pages all set and will play with my kids. They’ve been ‘assigned’ the speech for homework. How sweet that their teachers want them to stay up past their bedtime!
msmilack // Jan 27, 2010 at 11:46 pm
Obama knocked it out of the park. And, no offense, but I don’t think your score here is all that high for a very good reason: weren’t you pleasantly surprised by that marvelous speech? I was thrilled. He included all the elements you mentioned in an earlier article where you rightly stated the nature of his challenge and what he needed to weave together. Think of it this way: he used so many wonderful new phrases for your next puzzle. Very clever idea you had, though, to lay them out in advance. I enjoyed reading this post after the speech. I’m so happy from the speech, I could float.
msmilack
Kevin B // Jan 28, 2010 at 5:13 pm
An alternative, and more challenging, version of the game forces the players to pick which words and phrases will not be included in the speech. For instance, “Iraq,” “Maliki,” “Copenhagen,” “farmers,” “Secretary Geithner,” “China,” “Employee Free Choice Act,” “Guantanamo,” “systemic failure,” “criminal trials in civilian courts,” and “recent attempted terror attack in the skies over Detroit” might be good guesses.
Iraq – yes
China – yes
farmers – yes
“recent attempted terror attack in the skies over Detroit” – yes (i’m counting “unacceptable gaps revealed by the failed Christmas attack”)
No on the rest.
Sinz54 added these:
Stimulus package
Public option
General Motors
Yemen
Nuclear power
Stimulus package – Yes
Nuclear Power – Yes
No on the other 3