The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.

The Bad News Is His Replacement Is Shemp
“AP’s Curley to Retire; Led Agency Into Digital Age”–headline, Associated Press, Jan. 23

Bottom Stories of the Day

  • “Homeless NY Science Whiz Isn’t Finalist in Contest”–headline, Associated Press, Jan. 25
  • “GOP Candidates Criticize Obama, Each Other”–headline, CNN.com, Jan. 25
  • “Democrats Say State of Union ‘Right on the Mark’ “–headline, Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), Jan. 25

The State of the Union Is Angry
We were tired when we got home last night, too tired to pay much attention to the substance of President Obama’s State of the Union Address. But we dutifully sat through all 65 minutes of it, and they made a strong emotional impression: This guy is angry. And it was a vigorous sort of anger, not the thin-skinned petulance to which this president has accustomed us. The tone was not whiny but combative. Obama reminded us of Newt Gingrich.

To be sure, there are some major differences between the president and the former speaker. For one, whereas many people argue that Gingrich is not electable, Obama proved in 2008 that he is.

Yet think about the emotional contrast between the Obama of 2008 and the Obama of last night. The former was hopeful and unifying–a friend dubbed him “Mr. Sunshine”–while the latter is furious and divisive. This Jekyll-and-Hyde-like description oversimplifies matters, of course; candidate Obama showed flashes of anger at times, and President Obama struck some unifying themes yesterday. But overall, the mood of this campaign is dark where that of 2008’s was light.

Like Gingrich’s anger, Obama’s is sure to appeal to the most devoted partisans. But also like Gingrich’s anger, we wonder if it will appeal to independents. At one point the president said: “I bet most Americans are thinking the same thing right about now: Nothing will get done in Washington this year, or next year, or maybe even the year after that, because Washington is broken.”

Obama agreed that “Washington is broken.” But that is, to say the least, an awkward slogan for an incumbent president. True, voters thought Washington was broken before Obama became president. Their reaction, in each of the three federal elections after George W. Bush’s 2004 victory, has been to oust the party in power.

Last summer, as we noted in The Wall Street Journal, Obama hit something of a political nadir. Many of his supporters were depressed or enraged by his political weakness and what they saw as his ideological inconstancy. If he is to win re-election, it is necessary–although not sufficient–to turn this anger outward at Republicans. “Yes, many are disappointed in Obama,” observes Democratic operative Carter Eskew on the Washington Post website, “but [they] are beginning to perceive it isn’t all his fault and that the alternative is much worse. Perhaps we are entering a more productive stage of grief.”

How’s that for a bumper sticker: “A more productive stage of grief: Re-elect the president.”

Democrats, of course, were always going to be stuck with Obama as their nominee this year. They have to be relieved that he’s now coming across as a fighter rather than a loser. A fighter at least has a chance at winning.

Republicans, on the other hand, have to choose between the scrappy Gingrich and the more complaisant Mitt Romney. The contrast between the two is most evident in their descriptions of the president, whom Gingrich calls a dangerous radical and Romney describes as a nice guy in over his head. To our mind, Obama is neither as dangerous as Gingrich suggests nor as nice as Romney says. But the important thing about these statements is what they tell us about the men making them and the character of the campaign each is likely to run.

Obama has long had very poor approval ratings among independent voters, which ought to make him easy to defeat. Obama’s angry appeal is not going to win over unhappy independents. The great imponderable is whether Gingrich’s anger would put them off and thereby neutralize Obama’s–or, to put it another way, whether independent voters are fed up enough with Obama to respond to Gingrich’s angry appeal the way Republicans do.

For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”