Where Do We Go From Here?

You may have thought that I was not going to comment on the State of the Union Address by President Obama. Not the case at all. His address to the people and the Congress last Wednesday was in my opinion quite predicable. I purposely waited until all the political pundits in the media had their opportunity to evaluate and I was waiting a few days to evaluate the meeting on Friday between the President and the representatives of the Republican party. My evaluation of the Presidents first year in office was offered in my commentary last Friday, entitled "A Year of Broken Promises". I want to focus only on the reaction to his address and on areas where he had little or nothing to say.

To begin with, he stated "I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values." Are you kidding? This president gave during his first year 411 speeches or remarks on various topics, including 29 speeches on the Health Care reform still pending in Congress. And yet, he suggested the public didn't understand the
health care bill. The outcomes of Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts clearly rejected the health care legislation and other actions of this Presidency. During his speech he mentioned that "People are angry and they are frustrated...Not just because of what's happened in the past year or two years, but what's happened over the last eight years." In other words, "I'll blame Bush. That always works!" Sorry Mr. President, it is time to take ownership of your Presidency.

I found his remarks un-presidential when he chided the Supreme Court for their recent decision in defense of the 1st Amendment. There in front of him sat the members of the Court while he castigated them to the extent that the liberal side of the aisle stood and applauded. He accused the Court of opening the door for foreign corporations' campaign contributions when in fact all legal rulings expressively forbid this.

The President tried very hard to defend his Jobs Stimulus by pointing out that 300,000 Americans are working as teachers and other education workers, tens of thousands are police officers, firefighters, correctional officers and first responders. In reality, these jobs are either government (federal, state and local) or connected in such a way that they would not exist but for government.

Meanwhile, barely a paragraph was given to the war in Afghanistan and no recognition to the sacrifices made by Great Britain and other NATO allies. The global war against Al-Qaeda was hardly mentioned and the top issue of voters in the United States -Terrorism received little attention. I found it rather convenient for him to fail to mention the mistakes at Fort Hood and most recently, the prosecution of the Christmas Day bomber in which we now have come to find out was only questioned for 50 minutes and then given his Miranda rights.

The President met with Republican leaders on Friday which was televised. I think it was a good start but served only as an opportunity for each side to point out failures. I believe the President did act somewhat like a stern father admonishing his children as he spoke to them in his well known arrogant and condescending fashion. Today on the Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, the political guests of two democrats and two republicans continued to blame each other in very partisan manner for the failures of the present administration. The Republicans continued to hammer broken promises and lack of transparency while the democrats wanted to call the Republicans the "party of no" and blame Bush for the economic condition of the country, including the Medicare Prescription Program under Bush. As to transparency, I believe the public is beginning to see right through President Obama.

There has been much speculation this week over the results of the three state elections and whether President Obama would move at least to center left. Last Friday night after the address, the Fox panel did an early evaluation of the speech. What stuck out for me was the opinion of Charles Krauthammer, himself an MD in Psychiatry and degrees in Economics and Political Science. He stated that he believed that President Obama was in a state of "Clinical Denial". This afternoon on Fox News Sunday the regular panel evaluated again and three of the four where optimistic that President Obama would start to adjust his strategy towards the center. Dr. Krauthammer maintained his position in saying that the President would continue his left wing agenda. I agree with him but for the sake of our nation, I sincerely hope that I am wrong.