President Obama's State of the Union address was swiftly followed by a flurry of rebuttals from the GOP, offering a diversity of responses that highlight the ideological conflicts in the party, the Washington Post notes. Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the highest-ranked female Republican in Congress, delivered the official rebuttal.
- Rodgers, chair of the House Republican conference, said she offered a "more hopeful, Republican vision—one that empowers you, not the government," the Hill reports. She emphasized her three children, along with standard Republican talking points like getting rid of red tape, and said instead of Obama's "year of action," there should be a "year of real action" that doesn't make people's "lives harder with unprecedented spending, higher taxes, and fewer jobs."