TEL AVIV – A piece in the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsa opined that the detention of 10 American sailors just hours before President Obama’s final State of the Union address effectively “kidnapped” the “foolish” U.S. president himself by casting a shadow over his authority.
It is not unusual for U.S. presidents to reference the pope in their State of the Union addresses. President Obama’s decision to quote Pope Francis in Tuesday’s address follows on Lyndon Johnson’s citation of Pope Paul VI in 1968 and Bill Clinton’s reference to Pope John Paul II in 2000.
President Barack Obama delivered his sixth State of the Union Address on Tuesday evening and set a record with the amount of times he threatened to veto Republican bills over the course of his final two years in office. While Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst delivered the official Republican rebuttal, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) issued a response of his own, focusing on foreign policy.
