I wasn’t wowed by the President’s speech last night. When my wife said it was the best speech she’d ever heard him give I joked that it only seemed that way after listening to so many GOP Debates. She conceded the point.
My take was that under the circumstances it was the speech he had to make. It was full of Clinton-like small goodies that sounded appetizing. The GOP certainly is in no mood to give him anything big but these smaller things will be hard for them to oppose without looking more obstructionist. That’s not how the GOP will want to look going into November and yet their Tea Party Base probably won’t let them cooperate with the evil Kenyan. Obama could very easily come out smelling like a rose next to the dumpster as the election rolls around.
I’ve already ridiculed one of the President’s ideas – locking up kids in high school. Some of his optimistic rhetoric about Afghanistan rings hollow to me. We’re about to abandon them because we don’t have it in us to stick around any longer. Obama did the right thing. He’s backing out slowly enough that the Taliban might not overrun the country when we are gone. The rate at which Afghans are attempting to leave the country doesn’t leave me with much optimism on how that will work out. And goodness, Bush and the GOP let Bin Ladin get away. Obama got him. That counts more for me than the SOTU.
I think Obama got us a modest recovery which is a lot better than the outright Depression that would have been likely if the Tea Party had gotten its way and done nothing. His list of patches last night for the mortgage crises and tax fairness will be additional salve. I’d like to see him implement Simpson-Bowles type cuts but see that as unlikely because of the current Washington climate of scorpions in a bottle. I’ll take what I can get from Obama while expecting little from the FOX addled GOP.
The GOP Presidential candidates will keep throwing battery acid on each other for the foreseeable future and give the voting public a sobering look at the alternative to Obama. I’ve already seen the latest ads on youtube but that’s just a start. I’m heading to Florida for the week running up to the Primary to visit family that watches FOX. As Andy Sullivan says, please pass the popcorn.
