Last night’s State of the Union Address delivered by President Obama was a well crafted speech, chockfull of just the right kind of pageantry to seem powerful and uplifting, despite the fact that the president is now facing two years where every little thing is likely to be an uphill battle. Obama covered a vast range of topics in the hour he spoke, touching on education, immigration, the health care bill repeal. He spoke about trade agreements and curbing the sky-rocketing national debt by creating a government that doesn’t spend trillions of dollars more than it takes in. Obama talked about ending big oil subsidies, while offering a beautifully crafted comparison between developing clean energy now and the 1960’s space race to the moon.
It was inspiring, uplifting, and so full of promise that is was nearly empty of meaning.
But maybe that is all it was supposed to be. In his first two years in office, Obama managed to get universal health care legislation through congress, an accomplishment several decades in the making. It’s a feat to be proud of, certainly, but it was by no means an easy go, despite the Democratic majority in the House. Now, facing a Republican majority in Congress, Obama will have to cut more deals and make a lot more compromises in order to get any legislation at all passed, let alone anything with such blatantly partisan appeal.
And Obama’s speech did acknowledge that, opening with a quip about working together rather than just sitting together, but the speech that followed the joke made light of the fact that Obama will have to work a lot harder in the next two years to accomplish much less.
(Watch the speech on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZdEmjtF6HE)
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