Well, no Republican took me up on my
suggestion to walk out on President Obama’s
SOTU address.
Then again I didn’t follow my advice either. I watched the whole
thing (save for a 30 second respite from the Emergency Broadcast
System). Still, it’s an hour of my life that I will never get
back.
Here are a few observations from the past sixty minutes.
1. Obama wasn’t as strident as he was during the Second
Inaugural Address. As far as Obama speeches it wasn’t his most
annoying but it wouldn’t be an Obama speech if he didn’t engage in
some insufferable rhetoric.
2. Did Obama say we were going to “finish the job” of
reducing the deficit? We’ve scarcely scratched the surface.
3. Obama stated “we can’t just cut our way to prosperity.”
Well, Obama is content to spend our way to prosperity through
“investments” we can only pay for by borrowing money from
China.
4. With regard to tax and entitlement reform, Obama said,
“The greatest nation on Earth cannot keep conducting its business
by drifting from one manufactured crisis to the next.” Obama speaks
of this as if he has no involvement in the business of our nation
as if he’s above it all. Not only is Obama knee deep in the muddy
but he has long lived by the ethos of his former Chief of Staff
Rahm Emanuel not to let a crisis go to waste.
5. If Republicans were going to walk out on Obama they
should have done so the moment he said, “Let me repeat - nothing
I’m proposing tonight should increase our deficit by a single
dime.” Considering that Obama presided over the largest deficit
increase in this country’s history anything he says about not
increasing the deficit by a single dime should be dismissed out of
hand.
6. How can 12 of the past 15 years been the hottest on
record when the planet has been cooling since 1998? Well, if our
planet isn’t healed I guess Obama will settle for the healing of
our housing market.
7. Obama asserts that raising the federal minimum wage to
$9 an hour “would raise the incomes of millions of working
families.” How can that be if it forces employers to lay off
workers and impede employers from hiring new workers?
8. How can we help Libya provide for its security when we
were unable to provide adequate security for our consulate in
Benghazi?
9. If Americans are waiting “five, six, seven hours to
cast their ballot” then why haven’t we seen this on YouTube?
10. Obama was at his most emotional when he spoke about Newtown
and Hadiya Pendleton, the 15-year old girl who was murdered in
Chicago days after attending the inauguration. Her parents were in
attendance at the SOTU. Obama said they deserved a vote from
Congress on gun violence along with Gabby Giffords, the families of
Newtown, Aurora, Oak Creek, Tucson and Blacksburg.
Well, once again,
Obama didn’t mention the families of Fort Hood.
How would have a background check on Nancy Lanza prevented her
son with no previous criminal record from using her weapons to
commit evil against innocent children?
For his part, Obama said, “Our actions will not prevent every
senseless act of violence. Indeed, no laws, no initiatives, no
administrative acts will perfectly solve all the challenges I’ve
outlined tonight. But we were never sent here to be perfect.”
This explanation will simply not do. When a tragedy like Newtown
comes to pass our impulse is to do something when there might very
well be nothing more we can do. Doing something might make us feel
better but that doesn’t mean things will actually get better. It’s
not an easy thing to say but we must make the case the best
government is the one which governs least.
In the final analysis, if Republicans won’t walk out on Obama
then perhaps they could stay away from next year’s SOTU
altogether.
