StephenBeale.com

If President Obama’s State of the Union speech accomplished anything last night, it was in showing the limits of speeches.  Of course, Obama marshaled as much rhetorical firepower as he could for the occasion. He urged Americans to answer the call of history. He spoke of a deficit of dollars as well as trust.  And, in a nice turn of phrase, he conceded that although he won on the promise of change we can believe in, some Americans aren’t sure they believe the country can change. Indeed, what a difference a year makes. Such phrases might have struck a chord or stirred passion at the inauguration, but last night they seemed flaccid and cliched. The man who called on Americans to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and remake their country, seemed to be doing the same to his presidency last night.

And what a mess it was. Instead of offering a comprehensive vision for American recovery, Obama dished out a hodgepodge of meta-policies and micro-initiatives: the good, the bad, and the fads. In the good column: tax credits for hiring and loans to small businesses. Not good enough: a plan to freeze spending, except for defense, except for all the enormous entitlement problems, and not until 2011. The very bad: Obama stuck to his guns on health care and suggested that that creating a massive new government program would bring down the deficit—a claim that defies belief, if anything in his speech did. And, meanwhile, Obama still wants to end global warming and get gays into the military. Ending the war in Iraq and winning in Afghanistan, meanwhile, were afterthoughts. Ditto for homeland security.

And as much as Obama tried to respond to the anger, anxieties, and frustrations of ordinary Americans, his choice of words was revealing. He said he knew their pain, but not, as Clinton did, that he felt it. But does he really know it? With double digit unemployment, a housing market in a bottomless free-fall, and cash-strapped businesses, his words failed to measure up to the gravity of economic reality. Like the emperor without clothes, Obama seemed as much deluded as his audience.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 10:04 pm and is filed under Obama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.