Prior to President Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley gushed that the President “will be taking what you might call a valedictory lap” as he starts his final year in office while Face the Nation host John Dickerson ruled that the President offers “a message of hope” compared to one that’s “fearful of change” made by conservatives and Republicans.
At the top of CBS’s coverage of the speech, Pelley opined that since Tuesday night “could be the last time he'll have so large a national audience,” the President will seize on that chance to “tak[e] what you might call a valedictory lap as he heads into his last year in the White House.”
Dickerson chimed in moments later with what he’ll be watching for in the speech and how it’ll be about a “message of hope” while his opponents “are fearful of change”:
[H]e's going to talk about the future of the next five to 10 years, and he's going to frame this as a test. America is undergoing change, and in the past, they have — there have been two roads you can take. One is the road where people are fearful of change and people demagoged that fear and scared people, and the other is the road the President will offer, and that's one in which people embrace change, and it will be a message of hope, his argument basically ending his presidency with that message of hope, the same one he came in with.
As this writer chronicled earlier in the evening, ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News offered glowing previews of the President’s speech while the CBS Evening News actually highlighted the President’s low poll numbers on the economy, ISIS, terrorism, and how the country is on the wrong track.
The relevant portions of the transcript from CBS’s coverage of the State of the Union 2016 on January 12 can be found below.
CBS’s State of the Union 2016
January 12, 2016
9:00 p.m. Eastern
SCOTT PELLEY: This will be the President's seventh and final State of the Union address and it is likely to be the last time he speaks before a joint session of Congress and the President's also mindful this could be the last time he'll have so large a national audience. Mr. Obama will be taking what you might call a valedictory lap as he heads into his last year in the White House, and the nation's attention begins to shift to the election to succeed him.
(....)
9:01 p.m. Eastern
JOHN DICKERSON: Well, the President tonight, Scott, is going to talk about the future, but it's not the future of next year, not a future in which he and the legislators will try and make some gains and do some business. No, he's going to talk about the future of the next five to 10 years, and he's going to frame this as a test. America is undergoing change, and in the past, they have — there have been two roads you can take. One is the road where people are fearful of change and people demagoged that fear and scared people, and the other is the road the President will offer, and that's one in which people embrace change, and it will be a message of hope, his argument basically ending his presidency with that message of hope, the same one he came in with.
