I just watched the State of the Union speech and felt moved enough by what I saw to write about what I feel we can glean from the speech (full disclosure: I am an Independent Conservative so I naturally am going to be a tad biased in my assessment of what we can glean from the speech). However, I am not a Republican apologist because I am highly skeptical about their ability to do the right thing for this country based on their poor job of managing the country when they were in power.
First, the typical State of the Union speech has little political impact in the long-term because the ordinary American forgets what the President said after just a few days following the speech. Second, most of the items Presidents promise in these speeches rarely are ever delivered because they have to deal with Congress and there is only so much time to get things done.
Overall, I found Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech highly-partisan and full of questionable statements. The Republicans did an amazing job of restraining themselves when Obama made several objectionable statements. I know if I were there I might have been like Joe Wilson, who shouted something aloud after a questionable statement Obama made. I noticed how Obama blamed the previous Administration for the country's problems and mis-characterized what Republicans believe in.
Looking past substance, Obama could arguably be classified as a “demagogue” now. Obama tried to vilify Wall Street and health insurance companies in his speech tonight. He tried to appeal to Americans by saying he felt their pain and that he has gotten their message. You have to wonder if Obama is going to pit segments of American society against each other or take draconian actions for a short-term boost in popularity as American living standards decline rapidly in the coming years.
Obama also appears to want to continue to ram his policies through before the 2010 election. Obama pleaded with the Democrats to take advantage of their large majority in the Senate and in the House of Representatives and told the Republicans that they can’t say “no” to everything. Therefore, we should continue to expect more strong-arming by Obama and backroom deals when Obama needs the extra one or two votes to get his policies passed.
Finally, Obama is on the offensive. Even though Obama lost his super-majority last week he appears to feel that he can exploit the anger nationwide by channeling the anger towards his causes. This is probably why Obama tried again to pit the middle class against health care insurance companies and the big banks during his speech. This is also probably why Obama called on the Democrats to not retreat and put public pressure on the Republicans during his speech to offer their own solutions to issues of his choosing. Obama likely knows Americans want change based on the Republicans’ victory in Massachusetts last week. However, Obama probably feels that if he can use his charisma and go on the offensive he can dictate what kind of change will be made.
We're soon going to find out with the healthcare legislation if Obama's offense can overcome the Republican's newly-gained ability to filibuster legislation in the Senate.
