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.
