A few reactions the 2010 State of the Union address….
- A person with no history or intention of being “transparent” and “open” can, ironically, speak very passionately on the subject of being “transparent” and “open”.
- It’s not easy to speak compellingly on a topic when you have a clear record of ignoring what you proposed.
- Lots of “boob bait for the bubbas” in this speech. Santa Claus can be as generous as he needs to be when he’s _giving us back our own money_. It’s all about inserting government control into processes which run best without it.
- Add “grit”, “determination”, and “stubborn resilience” to “hope” and “change” on the List Of Things That Obama Thinks Make America Great But You Still Can’t Use To Buy Food.
- Were proposals taken from the conservative agenda made because they were concessions to the Republicans, or does Obama really understand why we need them? In the end, does it matter?
- If the claim not to have raised taxes is at all true, it’s because they’ve shouldered that cash onto the national debt. The claim is thus modified to “we haven’t raised taxes *yet*”.
- “Bi-partisan” to Obama apparently means “forget what you believe and do it my way”. When disagreement on direction is snarkily reduced to Republicans, and I quote, “just saying no to everything”, then you cannot trust that the leadership has set the interests of the American people ahead of the interest of the person or the party.
- “The nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy”… which is great until about the second generation of the technology, when everyone has all the free clean energy they could ever use. Then what? The current leadership is looking ahead ten years when it should be looking ahead fifty– or more. Can we break the cycle of plague and war by spreading out? If so, where might we go? The Democrats have all but scuttled the space program.
- Everyone can agree with patriotic sentiments but most don’t see it as a valid rationale for further robbing of the wage-earners… or further increase in Federal bureaucracy or control.
Here also is an interesting AP fact check.