The other day, January 27th to be exact, I wrote over on Roland's Ramblings about the State of the Union.
After listening to the State of the Union message from President Obama, I have listened to many commentators tell me what President Obama said, what President Obama did not say, what President Obama really meant by what he said or didn't say, etc., etc., etc. ad nauseum.
Also since I first wrote that Roland's Ramblings State of the Union piece and since President Obama delivered the message on the State of the Union, I have been reading plenty of comments in the print media and on the internet from others commenting in the same vein. The basic vein of response has been that many people have been critical of the President and of the President's State of the Union message; however, there have also been those who have had positive responsive commentary.
It seems as though while each individual heard the exact same words, almost everyone has heard a different message. Let me paraphrase in summary format what I heard: Members of Congress should quit playing partisan electoral politics and get down to the business of representing the interests of the American public at-large. PERIOD. However, for the most part what I have been hearing from others commenting on President Obama's State of the Union message has been that of good ol' everyday partisan politics bashing the President. Apparenly, the naysayer commentators and commenters simply are not interested in advocating that we all work together for the benefit of all Americans; they'd rather take their sniping political potshots to tear down rather than to build up.
If you have a hankering, go this-a-way to read the January 27, 2010 Remarks by the President in State of the Union Address for yourself.
Oh, and by the way, whatever your politics and no matter what you think, I personally feel people put too much emphasis on the importance of the "tradtional" January State of the Union address. Quite frankly, it is my opinion that this "annual exercise" is much more about a lot of hot air with little substance regardless of who is President. Therein lies the problem; too many people have the mistaken belief that the "tradtional" annual State of the Union address is supposed to be relevant to their own personally-held political beliefs.
1 comment:
Roland,
I would agree that far too much importance has been placed on the SOTU address in recent years, and that most of it is little more than political posturing, regardless of the party in power. I expected little more than what was delivered in this message as a consequence.
I was disappointed however to see the President call out the Supreme Court on their recent ruling on campaign finance reform, since they were doing their job of interpreting laws based on the Constitution, were invited guests and were therefore perhaps due a bit more courtesy, and because they were not in a position then (or ever) to respond to the charges.
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