Obama's SOTU | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: As a member of the working poor, without a digital converter on my TV (they are no longer $7), I was otherwise engaged selling tickets to American Sniper, et al when the speech came off. I am not sure I would have listened anyway. These things are now mostly political theater, especially when the President and Congress are of different parties. This is mostly PR. The best of these addresses, however, was the one hour talk that Bill Clinton gave without the teleprompter - because it had gone down. Its the best speech we have ever seen.
The Middle Class is a nice theme, and Jim Webb's comments show he is positioning himself as at one time being the class warrior in the 2016 Presidential race who does not use the word class. Sadly, talk of class warfare missed the lingering problem of people whose mortgages exceed the value of their homes. This is one thing he could do by working with Fed Chair Yellen - but the issue did not come up. It would have been nice to focus on the working class a bit more - if so they might actually come out and vote - there is little problem gettng the middle class to the polls. Maybe if he were the socialist the GOP accuses him of being, it would be easier to do so.
ISIL, which is a varient of what they call themselves - the L is for the Levant, has Obama trying to do what worked in Libya. Use American air power and let others put boots on the ground. It might actually work - and I suspect his reference to American leadership refers to the almost automatic role American generals have in commanding any joint operation - even if it is behind the scenes. The attempts to go after ISIL money are interesting, but I suspect the President was talking about the Wahabi money from Saudi Arabia, although it is impolitic to mention these things directly - it certainly got Sen. Kerry no love by doing so.
Immigration is the great failure of the last term of Congress - not because it did not pass - it was never going to - Tysons Chicken et al want their low wage slaves (not an exageration) and both parties ove the Food, Inc. money (indeed, when it looked like a plan was going to pass in 2010 the Anchor Baby issue came up to really poison the well). This is yet another instance where strategy had political optics turmp progress - just like the failure to get a tax bill passed in the first part of Obama's first term. This backfired when Massachusetts sent Scott Brown, the naked Republican, to the Senate. It took 2013 in the waning days of the first term to get the promised tax legislation passed. This time, instead of having the Senate propose a really good immigration law that could not be passed, it was loaded with compromise punitive language in hopes of embarrassing the GOP for not passing it. The sound of crickets at Latino precincts shows exactly how that worked. Schmoozing instead of golf would not have helped - indeed, no one says no to golf with the POTUS, as long as the folks back home don't find out. Duh! so much for for that personal touch.
Abortion is interesting. His dig at the movement was justified - this unspeakably pro-choice President has indeed lowered the abortion rate - however going higher on the Child Tax Credit - much higher than he proposed, could have used a mention. Missing was any talk of a compromise on late term abortion (which would have really riled NARAL Pro-Choice America (a term worthy of Karl Rove)) which would amend the Partial Birth Abortion Law to time limit it while including other forms of abortion, some that are actually more grissley than those prohibited by the Law. He made a promise in the 2008 debates that he so far has not kept - although I suspect the GOP does not really care, since the law was designed not to be enforced but to give the Pro-Life movement a shot at overturning Roe yet again - putting their hopes on Roberts and Alito - who proved to be in the Kennedy-O'Connor wing, not the Scalia wing on abortion.
This may have been the last major State of the Union for Obama. Next year the speech will occur in the shadow of the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire Primary. I expect something very rote, designed not to rain on Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton's parade (both of whom I met the night that Obama announced his candidacy in Illinois - and if Obama had followed Biden's advice - which I gave him - ISIL would not be a threat). The next on, in 2017, may not even happen - the tradition being to give the new President the floor soon after the inauguration in a speech that is not technically the SOTU, but does get everyone's attention. (I think the required speech is actually delivered in writing unless he uses it as a farewell address).
This was the last hurrah. From what I hear, it was worth the price of admission. I did not see the speech in order to write this column. It does not appear that MSW needed to either. The memes are a bit familiar. Looking at the pictures is interesting, however. Obama is significantly greyer this year. The office is aging him, as expected. It means he is not phoning it in from the Andrews AFB 19th Hole.
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