While I don’t wish to speak too harshly about President Obama’s state of the union address, we live in challenging times that call for candor. I call them as I see them, and I hope my frank assessment will be taken as an honest effort to move this conversation forward.
Last night, the president spoke of the “credibility gap” between the public’s expectations of their leaders and what those leaders actually deliver. “Credibility gap” is a good way to describe the chasm between rhetoric and reality in the president’s address. The contradictions seemed endless.
He called for Democrats and Republicans to “work through our differences,” but last year he dismissed any notion of bipartisanship when he smugly told Republicans, “I won.”
He talked like a Washington “outsider,” but he runs Washington! He’s had everything any president could ask for – an overwhelming majority in Congress and a fawning press corps that feels tingles every time he speaks. There was nothing preventing him from pursuing “common sense” solutions all along. He didn’t pursue them because they weren’t his priorities, and he spent his speech blaming Republicans for the problems caused by his own policies.
He dared us to “let him know” if we have a better health care plan, but he refused to allow Republicans in on the negotiations or consider any ideas for real free market and patient-centered reforms. We’ve been “letting him know” our ideas for months from the town halls to the tea parties, but he isn’t interested in listening. Instead he keeps making the nonsensical claim that his massive trillion-dollar health care bill won’t increase the deficit.
Americans are suffering from job losses and lower wages, yet the president practically demanded applause when he mentioned tax cuts, as if allowing people to keep more of their own hard-earned money is an act of noblesse oblige. He claims that he cut taxes, but I must have missed that. I see his policies as paving the way for massive tax increases and inflation, which is the “hidden tax” that most hurts the poor and the elderly living on fixed incomes.
He condemned lobbyists, but his White House is filled with former lobbyists, and this has been a banner year for K Street with his stimulus bill, aka the Lobbyist’s Full Employment Act. He talked about a “deficit of trust” and the need to “do our work in the open,” but he chased away the C-SPAN cameras and cut deals with insurance industry lobbyists behind closed doors.
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I was going to leave this article in the comment area but then I realized that I have been supporting Sarah all along so why would I leave this blistering attack on “Barack Who” lie where many will never see it?
Sarah is correct as usual and “Super Barry” is in deep shit.
Her political career is over, She makes too much sense.
mid island mike
Speaking of blistering attacks. Glenn Beck took ‘ol Barry and his not so merry anymore band of socialists out behind the woodshed this afternoon with his mathematics…logic…..mathematics….logic comparisons. By the way Beck has been pulling in upwards of 4,000,000 viewers during what has traditionally been the toughest time of the day to do so.
She was no nonsense on Fox Broadcast after the speech most certainly. Here she expands on her analysis in great detail. Especially where she says the stimulus bill represents primarily the lobbyists full employment act. That’d be a ‘direct hit’ on the current administration. McCain did outline the GOP’s healthcare initiatives that were cost reducers, so why did Obama wait to ask for alternatives in the SOFU. Pretty disingenuous, yet so genuinely dispensed with last night. How much longer can he act the part. Not much.
We need a Palin in this country to speak the truth to assholes like McGuinty.
johndoe124, McGuinty must be stopped dead in his track. How? He’s signing without consultation and his members are speaking up to that, not to mention the citizens. No. one: the wind turbines deal might create 16,000 jobs, but there are accumulating reports as to failure rates and health hazards, so there’ll be at least 16,000 jobs created when they have to be taken down.
Same with the all day kindergarten with the attached price tag is not justified in terms of children’s needs (afternoons are primarily napping sessions).
He might as well take a wrecking ball to what’s left of the ‘have not’ province. He’s rammed it through and the money’s going to disappear without a trace. Stop. Full stop.
I’ve never been so concerned for this province. We are experiencing ‘alarm mode’ no less.
Well, had John Tory run a better campaign here in Ontario by not putting so much emphasis on funding religious schools, we may not be stuck with one of Canada’s worse ever Premiers.
Thanks John, thanks for nothing!
johndoe124 – we have a Sarah Palin here in Canada and she has been around longer..Kate at smalldeadanimals – sda has a huge readership and she gets results – just like Governor Palin. We also have an up and coming future Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith. We have an excellent Prime Minister, America has a dud President and congress and senate – we do have, in a way that defies all rationality, the most biased left wing whacko media in the free world. The media bellers about perogies day in and day out – ignoring the biggest scandal of the decade – climategate – brought to us by the LIEberanos/Dippers/Bloc heads with the signing kyotee scar mongering scam designed to impoverish citizens by mandating payments for hot air.
Governor Palin speaks truth; it was fun watching her make mincemeat out of BHO’s speech – Glen Beck sprinkled on the parsley today. BHO is done like the hash he has tabled.
LOL, even far left Professor Marc Lamont Hill said on O’Reilly tonight that Obama could have easily cut his speech 30 minutes shorter. Obama just can’t stop loving hearing himself talk………his only positive attribute.
Sarah Palin is spot on again. Imagine if all voters saw were the candidates resumes, no names or pictures, there would have been no contest if it were between Palin and Obama. And no one could dispute that.