Obama Makes 'Spilled Milk' Joke During 2012 State Of The Union (VIDEO)

Few would say that President Obama's State of the Union address was funny. But he did, at one point, try to make a joke:

We've already announced over 500 reforms, and just a fraction of them will save business and citizens more than $10 billion over the next five years. We got rid of one rule from 40 years ago that could have forced some dairy farmers to spend $10,000 a year proving that they could contain a spill -- because milk was somehow classified as an oil. With a rule like that, I guess it was worth crying over spilled milk.

The joke wasn't really a hit. The audience let out a very audible groan, and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) was caught on the C-SPAN camera doing the rimshot gesture.

WATCH:

Comments

[geoh777]

08:59 PM on 01/28/2012

What's most unfunny about this is that O is telling about the govt backing off of a regulation. 10,000 steps backward, 1 forward.

[Greg Austic]

08:50 PM on 01/28/2012

So this was somewhat frustrating, because in fact milk is an emulsion of water and oil, along with some proteins. So, there's good reason why spilling large amounts of milk into the watershed is a bad thing (while biodegradable, it has high biological oxygen demand (BOD) and FOG (fats, oils, and greases) which can result in algal blooms and dead zones similar to other types of processed food waste of which the discharge is regulated). From a waste water perspective, agricultural run-off is one of the largest remaining untracked water discharges and is a big deal to regulators trying to achieve increasingly tight water standards in our nations lakes and streams. Saying it's stupid to prevent milk from spilling into the river is similar to saying it's stupid to prevent oil from spilling into the river.

It was a bad joke, but the flawed perspective behind it is was worse. Now, I am not for farmers paying extra money if they don't need to or unnecessary regulation, and I'm not educated enough about the details of this piece of regulation to know if it was useful for not. But I am for effective and efficient regulations preventing pollutants from being spilled into lakes and rivers.

Greg

[lcpnr]

08:39 PM on 01/26/2012

He really is slow

[Rafael Perez]

07:50 PM on 01/26/2012

GOP's face
*poker face*
-_-

FLOUS
-__________-

[mustchange2012]

09:42 PM on 01/25/2012

I have a joke,

What do you call a President elect who's been in office almost 4 years who's done nothing


Lame Duck, Obama vote out 2012

[year2068]

12:33 AM on 01/26/2012

I have another question for you where is all the jobs Obama talked about

[mustchange2012]

09:39 PM on 01/25/2012

OBAMA ONE BAD ASS MISTAKE AMERICA.

[Rafael Perez]

07:49 PM on 01/26/2012

The GRAND OPPRESSIONIST PARTY will soon meet its end.

[mustchange2012]

09:38 PM on 01/25/2012

Spilled Milk, and The Man Can't Cut the Mustard.

[year2068]

12:34 AM on 01/26/2012

That's not a joke thats the truth!

[Michael Johnson2]

05:42 PM on 01/25/2012

HAHA it's funny cause the country is collapsing

[Jeff Bunting]

04:15 PM on 01/25/2012

Guess I was the minority that thought the joke was funny.

[Casey Batten]

09:51 PM on 05/22/2012

I guess that means you and I get government paid scholarships then eh?

[Jason N]

04:11 PM on 01/25/2012

Horrible joke. Poor timing, poor delivery, poor everything.

[getoffmedz]

04:10 PM on 01/25/2012

Amanda, really?

[OhPlease10]

03:58 PM on 01/25/2012

Its not that deep - to even waste an article on a corny joke. Sometimes a joke bombs, that's the risk of telling one to begin with.

[pleasantlyny]

03:55 PM on 01/25/2012

1230 comments about this?

[dovelove]

03:33 PM on 01/25/2012

Good one, Mr. President. Well, not really.

[metoo123]

03:28 PM on 01/25/2012

One of my fav Obama lines.......eat your peas!