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Political Hay
A Tepid Obama
Beholden to union bosses and Hosni Mubarak.
State of the Union addresses are almost never great speeches. They almost can’t be, given all the ground that presidents feel obliged to cover. A speech that must defend the record of a previous year and set policy priorities for a coming year on a full range of issues both foreign and domestic will inevitably end up meandering, disjointed, and/or bloated.
There are sometimes good passages within State of the Union addresses — a few paragraphs laying out a coherent vision on a discrete topic. Last night, President Obama didn’t even have one of those. Instead he attempted to stretch his “winning the future” theme across a speech that was plodding and shapeless.
The decision of Senators and Representatives to mix the seating arrangement was in some ways a blessing: It made it difficult for one side of the chamber to sustain the applause that would have stretched out the already too-long runtime. But while the theatrics of State of the Union applause in the traditional partisan seating arrangement can be tiresome, they do serve a function: They tell viewers who supports what. Casual viewers of last night’s speech could be forgiven for assuming that Obama’s agenda enjoys the mild support of nearly all of Congress.
This does the president no favors. His party just took major losses in a midterm election, and his political fortunes depend in part on positioning himself as a moderate in a party that a majority of Americans feel has moved too far left. But when he tries to move to the center, as when he embraces an earmark reform proposal opposed by the leadership of his own party, he’s denied the politically powerful visual of applause coming mostly from Republicans. Conversely, if one of his various proposals from the left resonates with viewers, he doesn’t get the visual reminder that Republicans are on the other side.
But those are stylistic failures. The real problems with the speech are, of course, substantive. High-speed rail makes little economic sense in most of the United States given the realities of population density. “Clean energy” subsidies are, likewise, generally boondoggles.
More troubling was the signal that, while Obama would like Congress to ratify the free trade agreement his administration signed with South Korea — after gratuitously re-opening negotiations the Bush administration had already concluded — he’s putting the pending trade agreements with Panama and Colombia on the back burner; his reference to “keep[ing] faith with American workers… as we pursue agreements with Panama and Colombia” even implies that he might again try to re-open negotiations that the Bush administration had finalized — costing exporters billions to appease protectionist union bosses.
But most shameful of all was his failure to mention the clashes currently going on in Egypt, except in the most oblique terms:
We saw that same desire to be free in Tunisia, where the will of the people proved more powerful than the writ of a dictator. And tonight, let us be clear: the United States of America stands with the people of Tunisia, and supports the democratic aspirations of all people.
The protests in Egypt, inspired by Tunisia, put the U.S. in an awkward position, as Hosni Mubarak is a client, and some (but not all) of his opposition is intensely anti-American. But this makes putting distance between Washington and Cairo all the more urgent. The more the U.S. is seen to be supporting the Egyptian dictatorship as it cracks down on its people, the more likely it is that we won’t like the results if Mubarak does fall. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs put out a cautious statement last night urging “the Egyptian authorities to respond to any protests peacefully,” adding that “The Egyptian government has an important opportunity to be responsive to the aspirations of the Egyptian people, and pursue political, economic and social reforms that can improve their lives and help Egypt prosper.” There’s no reason Obama couldn’t have said something like this himself. His reluctance to do so is not just regrettable, it’s dangerous.
About the Author
John Tabin is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator online.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (31) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 1.26.11 @ 6:56AM
He is boring. This is the Obama the rest of us saw in 2008, and we are glad that you guys finally see the same thing.
We hope that curtain stays drawn for at least a little while.
loulou| 1.26.11 @ 11:10AM
He is indeed a crashing bore. Always has been.
Sid Vicious| 1.26.11 @ 1:16PM
Of course, That One remains a legend in his own mind.
Alan Brooks| 1.26.11 @ 7:28PM
Even if everything all of you write is from God's mouth to your ears, there is still a great relief everywhere that the Shrub left office 1/20/'09.
Answer one question: who misses the Shrub?
beebop| 1.27.11 @ 6:08AM
It isn't an either or situation to anyone other than the most simplistic. Perhaps you skipped right past the bruising Democraptic primary season where your side pummeled a more qualified female because it deemed "bros b4 'hos" the best case scenario? Seriously. Any legitimacy that you believe the left has over shrub is self delusional. At best. Cheers, though. Some more vain glorious socialist will rise from his ashes. Its like bad (truly bad) reality television.
old white guy| 1.27.11 @ 5:47PM
i would say just about everybody with a brain misses w.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 1.26.11 @ 7:30AM
To Obama America is a wallet he can pick for his pleasures. It's difficult to elucidate a vision of greatness out of that.
Anthony| 1.26.11 @ 10:23AM
Ya didn't happen to find Obozo's birth certificate in that wallet, did you?
Eric Cartman| 1.26.11 @ 10:34AM
LOL
Redstateboy| 1.26.11 @ 8:29AM
"Tepid" ? Hey! That was My Line! My close second thought to last nights SOU? He's lost the Country... America doesn't believe him anymore.
Stephanie| 1.26.11 @ 8:43AM
Tepid, boring yes. More importantly, he is an amateur who's out of his league. His foreign policy is a disaster and frightening.
old white guy| 1.27.11 @ 5:48PM
and the sob can still do a hell of alot of damage.
Dan Hirsch| 1.26.11 @ 9:59AM
I found myself in error on one thing-I was sure that the mixed dating thing for the SOTU was a bad idea. I figured it would make the Dem's look stronger than they are, the GOP weaker than it is, and provide cover to mushy Republicans' support for Obama policies (Mushy means moderate Obama accomodaters, Senator McCain!)
However, as Mr. Tabin described, it showed how pretty much nobody was enthusiastic about Dear Leader. I also discounted the chilling effect on one's applause when half of the people sitting around you don't jump up, whoop, and stomp their feet. I say it blew up in their faces!!!
Before last weekend Obama said he was backing the Bears and the Jets in the playoff games, because, well, they were the underdogs. We as a country genetically favor underdogs, maybe because the USA was an underdog for the first 140 years of our existence.
However, our national policy should not make us underdogs, which the current administration is actively promoting.
Methinks the Obama-progressive-liberals wish us to be underdogs so the rest of the world will like us.
No, wait. Not like "us", like THEM.
What the rest of the world really wants is somebody who will keep order - for seventy years that has been the US. We are in the process of dissipating our strength and ability to keep some order in the world. I don't want us to be in charge - I do want us to be available and able to intimidate the thugs of the world. Saber rattling actually costs less than fighting a war because some tyrant, Hitler, Hussein, Kim Jong Il, thinks you won't respond.
Our not being available and able encourages those thugs. Just look at South and Central America today, where are they going?
Sheesh- all this from where last night's seating chart. Time to turn the coffeemaker off.
Eric Cartman| 1.26.11 @ 10:09AM
Hmmm. So that is why he's been reading Reagan books. Has anyone noticed he was trying - trying, mind you - to sound like Reagan. Be "Reaganesque" ? He was trying to sing the praises of America. Did you get that? But he's a Lefty. He couldn't do it from the heart, so he mealy-mouthed it. That is why is sounded flat, or, as Redstateboy said, tepid.
It went something like this:
Obama: "Because America is where everyone wants to be . . . because we finally lifted DADT and gays can serve openly and we are working on windmills."
Whaaaa? But everyone got it - it made no sense. Even the blacks on Luntz's panel last night said he has been lying since coming to office and the speech was disconnected (3 of the 5 Blacks said they probably would not vote for him again). Obama is toast.
Frisbee| 1.26.11 @ 3:21PM
Restore DADT. Obama effectively sodomized the US military in his lame duck session repeal. Last night, he got up, laughing at his victim while scraping off the muck.
martin j smith| 1.26.11 @ 10:52AM
to RINOS who love Obama and of course the LEFT trolls: If the economy does not significantly improve by 2012 ( say the early fall--September ) OBAMA WILL LOSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That means employment levels must significantly go up!( umenmployment below 7%
Gas prices cannot be at $5.00 per gallon or more
etc etc.
Ned| 1.26.11 @ 1:27PM
As the Irish say, From your lips to Gods ear...
Dixie Pixie| 1.26.11 @ 6:47PM
Is it my imagination or did Obama say he is going to solve the nations problems with technological innovation.
Does Obama even know the Democratic Party and the far Left has been technophobic for generations.
Expecting the Liberals to reverse course 180 degrees and suddenly become technophilic is ridiculous.
It is at least as ridiculous is expecting 80% of all energy be "Green Energy".
Does Obama really think all cars can be powered by all the colors of the wind?
C.K. Amos| 1.26.11 @ 10:33PM
"Does Obama really think all cars can be powered by all the colors of the wind?"
Who knows? I think he really doesn't much care, though by pushing the untenable "green" mush he does, he keeps the enviro-wacko base of his party partly sated, while bringing agita to the energy business and everyone downstream of them in the supply chain.
Bruce| 1.26.11 @ 7:14PM
After enduring eight years of Granholm in Michigan, I couldn't muster the stomach to watch this drivel from WussInChief BO. Like Granholm, BO will bring America a lost decade if elected again. Granholm, the green governor, muttered the same line of lame dogma and refused to acknowledge the total failure of her governing. She is now at Berkley and will teach public policy and revisionist history to the mush skulls. Where does BO go after his failed presidency?
C.K. Amos| 1.26.11 @ 10:31PM
C'mon, John: It's not that Obama was tepid, it's that he was lifeless, as were his words.
WAKE UP| 1.27.11 @ 1:35AM
What a sad, dangerous little man Obama is.
beebop| 1.27.11 @ 6:12AM
He never once looked beyond the chamber he was addressing. It is as if there is no "there" out here. He cut short his trip to Wisconson in service to his concern about HIMSELF. Thanks be to GOD that he was not the occupant of the oval office when we got shellacked by Muslim fundamental terrorists. Thanks be to GOD.
old white guy| 1.27.11 @ 5:51PM
hussein obama is shellacking the country all on his own.
sinanju| 1.27.11 @ 11:34AM
I couldn't bring myself to watch, but I did take note of the excerpts and reviews that made it plain he basically contradicted himself. Starting off with some Reaganesque patriotic rah-rah rhetoric then segueing into an almost word-for-word repeat of Jennifer Granholm's five-year-plan for Michigan writ large. Green jobs, high-speed rail, and taxpayer-subsidized pie-in-the-sky magical energy for all. Paid for with "investment" rather than "stimulus" money from that magic pot-o-gold in the White House basement.
I'll have to do some YouTube research for the visuals but I do like the thought that the "non-partisan" seating had an overall dampening effect, rather than somehow magically intimidating all the Repubs to jump up and applaud on cue.
Oh, and let's hope we don't get what we deserve with Egypt. Like with Saudi, we have been (correctly) seen as the patrons and protectors of the people whose boot has been on their necks for decades. Let us hope (with apologies to Golda Meir) that the Egyptians love their own freedom and opportunity more than they'd love to spite us by going Islamist. The Muslim Brotherhood might be the best organized player on that scene but remember that Egypt was ground zero for a century and a half (now forgotten since the rise of Nasser and Pan-Arabism in the fifties) of the Arab world's experiment with democracy.
USAttorney| 2.1.11 @ 2:57PM
I have a big, wrinkly brain and I don’t miss “W.” Herbert Walker and Clinton were two of the most economically sound leaders of the last six POTUS. Read a book and learn a bit about where the current debt and increased defecits started. And don’t give me 9-11-01 excuses. H.W. protected our proverbial backyard interests and we were PAID for it. It’s all about statesmanship. If Baker had done a better job of selling his policies he would have had a second term (Perot is not a sole blame factor). Still, Clinton, a Rhodes Scholar despite a country accent, carried over some sound fiscal policies lifted from the pages of H.W. (who you may recall, ridiculed Reaganomics in the primaries). Working with Newt they did quite a few things. He wasn’t too tepid to “shut down” the government to get things done either. I wonder what children are allowed to vote since there’s this fixation on animals despite a warning to “beware tangling alliances.”
That said, SOTU was weak. As a conservative with a paid for house, a big car, and multilingual training enabling me to flee the greatest country if we continue the slide into the abyss of non-accountability and the like, some objective points on our current POTUS:
1) I think he thinks too much. W was about action, so when he did something wrong we knew it and could address it more quickly. I too am guilty of overthinking and my friends sometimes complain they thought I was going to do something that I was just contemplating. No clear direction.
2) Overconfidence. This depletes the value of having brains like Gates the same way W not listening to the only member of his cabinet to actually have commanded an army caused wasted men and resources in the presently continuing conflicts. A good old Christian serving of humility would do wonders. Sometimes it’s as simple as letting things fester because you’re “above” them (like the birth certificate controversy) until they work like termites to rot you. If I were the Secret Service Director or even O, I’d have sued anyone questioning my citizenship for defamation/libel/etc.. Now think, don’t cry and throw a tantrum… this isn’t a legal solution, it just raises the bar if you’re going to criticize. His refusal to enter the fray is a sign of overconfidence, plain and simple.
3) President Grant. Learn some history. We’ll never know how good you are when you’re surrounded by foul-ups. So good or bad, the team adds a funk the American people can’t see through to make a fair evaluation one way or another.
Well... I could go on for hours...
Adidas | 8.11.11 @ 4:40AM
is good