2010 State of the Union Address

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C-SPAN has President Obama's first State of the Union Address on video for those who want to watch it. Every State of the Union Address is a different creature, and presidents in the past have used it to lay out plans for the future, to reassure a doubting public, to confront a hostile Congress, to reverse positions of the past year, and more. State of the Union Addresses have been strong, motivating speeches, they've been vague, unguided hopes, and they've been weak pleas for trust and cooperation.

All in all, I think Obama's speech last night had some of all of that. I think Obama spent too much time on the past, whether trying to blame things that came before him or trying to recapture the hope and promise of his campaign. I also think he layed out some lofty, and hopeful, goals that could genuinely help our nation. Some things he's proposed have been long needed, while others long-dreaded by either Democrats and Republicans. I'm curious to see how many of them, if any, actually get done.

I liked his energy proposals, all of them. I hated his student-loan proposal. I think various parts of his tax proposals may be good or bad, along with the community bank credit. I liked his trade ideas (especially export), but I'm not sure how realistic they are. I'm glad he brought back the issue of health care insurance, but I don't think he recapped it well. He talked about debt and deficit, but he opened his speech talking about how he didn't raise taxes (a typical political conundrum). I'm curious as to how much his budget freeze will actually impact (note it's on 'discretionary spending'), as well as whether it'll be good or bad for the economy as a whole. He once again brought up this 'deficit of trust', but I think he was just trying to paint himself as a Washington Outsider again, when the past year has shown him to be a consumate Insider. The Earmark idea is innovative, but I'm not sure it will actually happen, or even make a difference.

How about the rest of you? Did you watch the address live? Did you watch it on the net? Do you care? Does it concern where you live (for those outside the US)? For those that watched it, what were your reactions?

 

I watched it on live MSNBC, (of course ), and thought it was pretty good for what it was. While his performance approval rating is low, his personal approval rating is very high, and I think he was using that personal approval people have for him, since his tone was conversational and personable.

As the evening wore on though, the Republican side appeared more and more dour, and by the end they looked pissed. I'm sure they expected him to appear more rattled and panicked about last week's results in MA, but he, at the very least, appeared unfazed while he certainly acknowledged it.

But he was elected on the face of his campaign promises, which he has not made good on. He did say that he would "fix" Washington and change the way things were done. Well, we know how that turned out. He didn't. Health care turned out to be a shining example of everything that is wrong with Washington: Democratic politicians taking care of themselves, the industry under reform writing the "reform," and the opposing party condemining everything as the Second Coming of Communism upon the face of the planet. Obama needs to walk some of that fine talk of his.

While Republicans despise how Obama goes back to the Bush years, liberals like me, are glad for it. The reality is that the Republican solutions that are currently out there, are still very much like the previous 8 years - there's nothing new here. Obama is reminding everyone that bringing back the Republicans will be bringing back the Bush/Cheney years, at least judging by the rhetoric.

Repubicans claim that they have learned their lessons and have "returned" to their core values, and that would be:

1. Government deregulation of big business (been there, and done that).

2. Tax cuts for corporations and the rich (been there too).

3. More military spending and corporate welfare under the guise of "nation building" the ME (does that sound familiar?)

4. Maintain the status-quo of "the best health care system" in the world . But we do need to move the states out of the way to make it even "better."

Where's THAT change?

 

I have no problem with a review of failures of the past. In fact, I think it's necessary and important. I just feel that Obama's review of it sounded less like "We tried this and it didn't work" or "Here's how we got here" and more like "It's not my fault, blame them".

I also think a key weakness in his speech, and an unavoidable one, is that the State of the Union Address is inherrantly a promise. It inherrantly plays on people's trust and hope, and any attempt by Obama to do that will necessarily remind people of his campaign slogan and promises and how they've worked out. I think Obama could have downplayed it more, but nothing he could do would eliminate that problem entirely.