Since the President of the United States felt he could ramble on without aim or much purpose last night, I claim the right to do the same in my written opinion today on his State of the Union address. In case you missed it and would like to follow along with me while I stand on my little soapbox, you can read the text here.
So last night I couldn't help but think that President Obama was a little too in-your-face with the Supreme Court Justices all sitting there. And apparently, others agree with me. (These "others" are people who probably are more knowledgeable and definitely have larger reading audiences than I'll ever have. Oh, and they write for the New York Times. Read Linda Greenhouse here. Read Jeff Zeleny here.)
Talk about long. Only two other Presidents were more long-winded: Clinton four times, and Johnson once.
And I agree with one comment from the Heritage Foundation about the messy nature of the speech: "[It] was an incoherent mess of promised tax cuts for small businesses coupled with the threat of tax hikes from his health care and energy proposals; more federal money to encourage banks to lend to businesses, coupled with new taxes on banks and individuals; the continued waste of his $862 billion stimulus plan and $2 trillion in new health care spending, coupled with a delayed and temporary spending freeze." (And that seemed to be a nice way to put it...)
Other than a few specific ideas (for example, require students' higher education loan payments to be only 10% of a person's income, and the debt totally forgiven after 20 years - or ten years, if you go into public service), everything was a generic reiteration of what we've been through and heard the last several months. Mr. President, we didn't like your bills before. One speech isn't going to get us to like your [fill in the blank - jobs, health care reform, cap and trade, whatever] bill any more than we did the last time we heard about it. The rest of what was stated was mindless dreck without much order given to it.
And furthermore. You say you want to stop running Washington like it's still in election mode? ("But what frustrates the American people is a Washington where every day is Election Day.") Well, for starters, why don't you STOP ADDRESSING THE MEDIA EVERY SINGLE DAY?! It feels like you're still trying to win an election that you already won over a year ago. Your popularity is surely going down simply because of that (let alone going down because of your unpopular policies and stances on issues). We are tired of hearing you, tired of your daily media availability, tired of your face constantly in our faces. But we know the truth: this country's politicians are ALWAYS in election mode. We are at the point where running for office is a full-time job for sometimes years before any ballots are ever cast.
IF YOU ALL HATED THE BANK BAILOUT, why did you all vote for it? (“We all hated the bank bailout,” Mr. Obama said, equating it to being as popular as a “root canal.”)
If every word Obama said was worth a million bucks, we still probably wouldn't have enough money to pay for all of what he was pushing last night.
Now, for the aesthetics of the speech: Mr. President. I would kindly suggest you put your hands down by your sides the next time you give a speech. Incessantly clasping your hands and banging them together on the podium was extremely annoying and completely distracting. Maybe that was your intent: distract your opposition from noticing the very bad words and worse policies (Saith the Prez: In Your Face, military, SCOTUS, pretty much anyone standing around besides Joe "Bobblehead" Biden and Nancy "Lizard Lips/Seal Clapper" Pelosi).
On to the other speech of the evening: Governor McDonnell, you had me at keeping the speech to ten minutes so your twin boys could go watch SportsCenter. The rest of your speech was just icing on the cake. In particular, I'm glad you were hitting home the theme of equal opportunity (as opposed to the usual Democrat idea of equal outcome). Thank you for that, Governor.
_____
This is why I should just not watch President Obama's speeches. He drives me crazy, and my blood pressure goes up.
Now, back to our reguarly scheduled, not-too-serious programming...
So last night I couldn't help but think that President Obama was a little too in-your-face with the Supreme Court Justices all sitting there. And apparently, others agree with me. (These "others" are people who probably are more knowledgeable and definitely have larger reading audiences than I'll ever have. Oh, and they write for the New York Times. Read Linda Greenhouse here. Read Jeff Zeleny here.)
Talk about long. Only two other Presidents were more long-winded: Clinton four times, and Johnson once.
And I agree with one comment from the Heritage Foundation about the messy nature of the speech: "[It] was an incoherent mess of promised tax cuts for small businesses coupled with the threat of tax hikes from his health care and energy proposals; more federal money to encourage banks to lend to businesses, coupled with new taxes on banks and individuals; the continued waste of his $862 billion stimulus plan and $2 trillion in new health care spending, coupled with a delayed and temporary spending freeze." (And that seemed to be a nice way to put it...)
Other than a few specific ideas (for example, require students' higher education loan payments to be only 10% of a person's income, and the debt totally forgiven after 20 years - or ten years, if you go into public service), everything was a generic reiteration of what we've been through and heard the last several months. Mr. President, we didn't like your bills before. One speech isn't going to get us to like your [fill in the blank - jobs, health care reform, cap and trade, whatever] bill any more than we did the last time we heard about it. The rest of what was stated was mindless dreck without much order given to it.
And furthermore. You say you want to stop running Washington like it's still in election mode? ("But what frustrates the American people is a Washington where every day is Election Day.") Well, for starters, why don't you STOP ADDRESSING THE MEDIA EVERY SINGLE DAY?! It feels like you're still trying to win an election that you already won over a year ago. Your popularity is surely going down simply because of that (let alone going down because of your unpopular policies and stances on issues). We are tired of hearing you, tired of your daily media availability, tired of your face constantly in our faces. But we know the truth: this country's politicians are ALWAYS in election mode. We are at the point where running for office is a full-time job for sometimes years before any ballots are ever cast.
IF YOU ALL HATED THE BANK BAILOUT, why did you all vote for it? (“We all hated the bank bailout,” Mr. Obama said, equating it to being as popular as a “root canal.”)
If every word Obama said was worth a million bucks, we still probably wouldn't have enough money to pay for all of what he was pushing last night.
Now, for the aesthetics of the speech: Mr. President. I would kindly suggest you put your hands down by your sides the next time you give a speech. Incessantly clasping your hands and banging them together on the podium was extremely annoying and completely distracting. Maybe that was your intent: distract your opposition from noticing the very bad words and worse policies (Saith the Prez: In Your Face, military, SCOTUS, pretty much anyone standing around besides Joe "Bobblehead" Biden and Nancy "Lizard Lips/Seal Clapper" Pelosi).
On to the other speech of the evening: Governor McDonnell, you had me at keeping the speech to ten minutes so your twin boys could go watch SportsCenter. The rest of your speech was just icing on the cake. In particular, I'm glad you were hitting home the theme of equal opportunity (as opposed to the usual Democrat idea of equal outcome). Thank you for that, Governor.
_____
This is why I should just not watch President Obama's speeches. He drives me crazy, and my blood pressure goes up.
Now, back to our reguarly scheduled, not-too-serious programming...
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