Obama Is Making More Sense Than the Loyal Opposition
President Obama said "jobs" 47 times in his State of the Union message last Tuesday night, so we know what's on his mind.President Obama said “jobs” 47 times in his State of the Union message last Tuesday night, so we know what’s on his mind.
Whether he has the political strength and will to make those ideas — some pretty good — into policy and law is the question of the coming year, maybe the coming four years. Press reaction from coast to coast was generally, but cautiously, positive. The New York Times editorial reaction was under a generous headline:“The President’s Challenge to Congress — In the State of the Union address, Mr. Obama points to a way out of austerity and stalemate.”On the West Coast, the Los Angeles Times editorial reaction was more skeptical, praising the speech but using the headline: “Obama’s New Vision: Doable?”The vision, it seemed to me, was middle-range. In fact, the president strikes me as a middle-range thinker — which is long-range compared to most politicians — but not a visionary, if any exist anymore in national politics. He promoted a good deal of common (and popular) sense about jobs, globalization, climate change, the minimum wage, immigration and guns. This practically makes him Plato compared to his Republican and congressional opposition, which is officially and consistently looking backward to vanilla old days.The president’s address did not come at an easy time. Yes, things do seem to be getting a little better economically, but the Republicans, judging by Sen. Marco Rubio’s reaction speech, are going to do their best to block anything proposed by the president — good, bad or indifferent.Sen. Rubio, touted by Time magazine as the Republican “savior,” repeated old words and ideas, in English and Spanish, that will be little remembered, though his desperate televised lunge for a bottle of water will probably be never forgotten. Good film is like that. In fact, the man from Florida made a fool of himself a couple of times, particularly when he said government can do nothing about the effects of weather.© 2013 UNIVERSAL UCLICK
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