I missed most of President Obama’s inauguration speech but I knew it had to be pretty darned good, hard-hitting and effective from the disdain and disgust from the Fox News commenters in its immediate aftermath. In my view, Brit Hume took the cake for his lament that the speech wasn’t 2010 enough, i.e. Obama didn’t talk cutting entitlements or defer to the Tea Party enough. Nobody reminded him that the Tea Party has lost about 2/3 of its popularity since 2010 and is now substantially less popular than socialism.

Hume said:

(Obama’s) election was dominated, I think, and determined - his original election - by the economy, which was in terrible straits when he took office. And what did he say about the economy today? He said a recovery has begun. This is four years down the road. In fact, that recovery of which he speaks, began only months after he took office… and it has been by historic standards, a very lame recovery since then with only modest… growth.

Host Megyn Kelly jumped in to say that the unemployment rate is largely unchanged since then.

Hume continued:

So what did he say in the speech today (about creating a more robust econonmy)? …Practically nothing. Now, turn to the 2010 midterm in which his party lost all those seats. And that was driven in considerable measure by the growth of the deficit and the national debt and a tremendous anxiety in the country about spending. So, we do get some words about (it from) him. He says, ‘We need to make the hard choices and reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit.’ And the next word, as you could probably, as you probably remember, was ‘but.’ And after the but, he gets into about, ‘We reject this choice between caring for generations that built this country and investing in it, and the generation will build its future,’ and he talked about Medicare, as Bret pointed out, Medicaid, Social Security. Any intention that you might have thought he had to shrink those programs to the size that will allow them to continue to thrive or survive – unmentioned here.

Chris Wallace, who was the least negative of the crew, said Obama’s speech was “A real call to arms for a liberal agenda.” Any Foxy worth their salt knew that was a bad thing. Wallace later added, “I don’t think he reached out to the other side at all” and had not put “much emphasis on deficit reduction or balancing the budget.”

Hume agreed, glumly, with Wallace that President Obama was going to expand a liberal agenda, not just protect one.

Wallace said that Obama was seeking common ground with Republicans but “very much on his terms.”