Rep. Weiner: ‘I just needed a drink’ after GOP response  —  One Democratic congressman says he was ready to hit the bottle after hearing the Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union Tuesday night.  —  Rep. Anthony Weiner (N.Y.), who is known for his outspokenness …

Poll: High Marks for Obama's State of the Union Speech  —  An overwhelming majority of Americans approved of President Obama's overall message in his State of the Union on Tuesday night, according to a CBS News Poll of speech watchers.  —  According to the poll, which was conducted online …

The Politics of Evasion  —  If you were a visitor from Mars, watching tonight's State of the Union address and Paul Ryan's Republican response, you would have no reason to think that the looming insolvency of our entitlement system lies at the heart of the economic challenges facing the United States over the next two decades.

BUDGET AND ECONOMIC OUTLOOK: FISCAL YEARS 2011 THROUGH 2021  —  Text-only.  —  The United States faces daunting economic and budgetary challenges.  The economy has struggled to recover from the recent recession, which was triggered by a large decline in house prices and a financial crisis …

The Ryan Response  —  ... was as bad as you might expect.  Lots of breast-beating about deficits; you'd never know that no leading Republican, Ryan very much included, has offered a serious proposal to cut the deficit.  Some cooked statistics about federal spending.  And then there was this curious assertion:

SOTU, the Middle East and the end of the audacity of hope?  —  The Arab world is in flames.  The Palestinian Papers have created a sensation in the Middle East.  And what has President Obama got to say about it?  “And tonight, let us be clear: The United States of America stands with the people of Tunisia …

EXCLUSIVE: Obama to Declare ‘The Rules Have Changed’  —  Full text of speech draft obtained by National Journal  —  President Obama speaks to both houses of Congress during his first State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol on January 27, 2010.  —  Insisting bipartisanship …

Fact Checking Rep. Bachmann's “Tea Party Response” To The State Of The Union  —  Insisting that she was not upstaging the official GOP response to President Obama's State of the Union, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) offered a combative and highly misleading speech of her own following the president's address.

Rep. Broun to Obama: ‘You believe in socialism’  —  GOP Rep. Paul Broun (Ga.) rebuked President Obama using perhaps the sharpest language among his Republican colleagues following the State of the Union address Tuesday night.  —  Broun took to Twitter during the address, accusing the president of believing in socialism.

Charlie Louvin, Country Singer, Dies at 83  —  Charlie Louvin, a member of one of the pre-eminent brother acts in country music and an inspiration to several generations of rock musicians, died Wednesday at his home in Wartrace, Tenn. He was 83.  —  The cause was complications of pancreatic cancer …

Game-changer!  Arizona to pass 2012 eligibility law  —  Obama will have to produce birth certificate to run again  —  It could be a game-changer.  —  A plan in Arizona to require presidential candidates to prove their eligibility to occupy the Oval Office is approaching critical mass, even though it has just been introduced.

Dear commenters, Steve Doocy is reading  —  One of the themes of the Esquire profile of Roger Ailes, with which Ailes cooperated, is that Ailes reads ever word written about him.  —  You might think that was an exaggeration.  But apparently he does, or someone over on Sixth Avenue does.

Egypt president's son, family flee to Britain  —  CAIRO: Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's son, who is considered as his successor, has fled to Britain along with his family, a US-based Arabic website reported.  —  The plane with Gamal Mubarak, his wife and daughter on board left …

Dow Touches 12,000 for First Time Since 2008  —  Stocks on Wall Street broke through a psychologically significant level on Wednesday that markets have not seen for two and a half years.  —  The Dow Jones industrial average crossed 12,000 points on Wednesday, fueled by President Obama's call …

Feisty Issa Spars with Committee Members over Procedures in First Oversight Hearing  —  ABC News' Arlette Saenz reports: After last night's show of civility across party lines at the State of the Union, Rep. Darrell Issa's first Oversight Committee hearing on bailouts and the foreclosure crisis started with a bout over procedure.

Get A Better Metaphor  —  A reader writes: … The problem here is imagining that war analogies map onto public discourse.  In a war, the object is to kill the people on the other side.  So bringing a knife to a bazooka fight isn't very effective.  But in politics, the object is to persuade …