President Obama's State of the Union Address

Ok.  I confess.  I watched President Obama's State of the Union Address.  I knew it would be a colossal waste of time, as well as a stressful and blood-pressure altering event.  Nevertheless, I put my mind, my patriotism and my Christian/conservative values through it.


It was rather boring.


In raw terms of speeches, it simply missed the mark totally.  It lacked just about everything a good speech should have from passionate, engaging delivery to substantive issues.  His opening was confusing.  Never mind his revisionism of the past 15 years.  Sure, we've had some devastating events, but the past decade and a half weren't all bad.  But seriously, they "dawned with terror touching our shores"?  I thought Y2K was the beginning and that 9/11 would come 21 months later.  But I suppose I'm quibbling over what "dawn" actually entails.


"But tonight we turn the page", said the President. "Tonight, after a breakthrough year for America, our economy is growing and creating jobs at the fastest pace since 1999."  I'm not sure what reality he is living in, but nothing has changed for me, my family, nor my friends.  The President would later ask

Will we accept an economy where only a few of us do spectacularly well? Or will we commit ourselves to an economy that generates rising incomes and chances for everyone who makes the effort?

That sounds a lot like we haven't turned the page at all.  But what I'd really like to know is whether we will have an economy that gives to those who do nothing.  Whether illegal immigrants will continue to receive for free things my family cannot afford.  Whether those who choose not to work will receive benefits and entitlements at the expense of those who do work.


Additionally, the President's analogy taken from Rebekah Erler's letter that "we [Americans] are a strong, tight-knit family who has made it through some very, very hard times" is laughable.  We don't even all speak the same English language.


I suppose I've been so accustomed to the President's wealth distribution rhetoric that his vision of cheap child care and $0 tuition for community college didn't phase me (much).  And the closing of Gitmo (Guantanamo Bay prison)?  I thought he already promised he was closing it?  Albeit, it would be a huge mistake for our national security.  And that President seemed to know what the American people want and what they sent both Democrats and Republicans to Congress to do.  He seemed to forget that Americans sent Republicans to Congress in droves to stop him and his agenda.


One point did get my blood pumping just a bit.  The President scolded Congress

So let's set our sights higher than a single oil pipeline. Let's pass a bipartisan infrastructure plan that could create more than thirty times as many jobs per year, and make this country stronger for decades to come.

As if the Keystone Pipeline bill would not be complex enough.  The President doesn't want a one-issue bill.  That would be too simplistic.  We could know who wants us dependent on foreign oil.  We could have a very focused debate on one issue.  But the President, who says he doesn't want politics as usual, wants politics as usual.  Create a massive bill with a massive pricetag that contains massive issues.


Let's hope the Republicans remember why they were given control of the Senate.  Of course, the best part about the evening was that we will only have to listen to one more State of the Union speech from Mr. Obama.