Obama State of the Union (SOU): Another Take

Osama's SOU speech was Clintonesq. He had to move to center and to be fair, he was farther to the left than Clinton when he had to make his move. Obama is stuck with a GOP majority in the house with it approaching it in the Senate. He needs to incite his base like the Tea party for the GOP, but not on ignorance the way they did. I am not sure the SOU is the place to do it, but it is a huge photo op. The speech was boiler plate and cynics, with some credibility, will argue the GOP will not fund Innovation, Energy or Education. I like placing these 3 major initiatives in the context of competitiveness and being candid about how world economics reduced the U.S. leverage. This context is an opportunity for Obama to use GOPesq scare tactics on the GOP by laying the declining America on GOP blockage of Obama's 3 major initiatives. It will be on the GOP's head when inaction plus clandestine moves on social security backfires if the Dems can communicate with the voters. The Democrats must make clear the consequences of the bogus GOP obsession with the debt and that most of it is a ruse to scare voters into voting against Democrats when they are, in fact, voting against themselves. 99% of what GOP does is to feather their nest (increase their income and their market power) using their ownership of the media to pound the public with their myths with little relation to the good of the country, i.e.:

-Keep tax cuts for the rich (TCFR) to spur the economy, when no correlation exists. No growth in GDP will occur but $800 bil will be added to the debt which GOP claims they oppose.

-Raise military spending since military contractors are big in the GOP base, increasing the debt and claiming a cut is against the troops, is bogus since a cut makes the military more efficient which is good for the troops

Kudos to Obama for pleading not to continue TCFR, but it is like saying: we lost that game to the GOP but it would be bad to lose that game again when their team is likely to be better and Obama's is likely to be no better when they play again. There was a better chance of stopping TCFR in the last lame duck Congress than in the present Congress.

Disappointment to Obama for validating the bogus GOP deficit scare and failure to focus more on employment/jobs as the appropriate key objective for the remainder of his term and the next one as unemployment will still be above 7% in 2012.