The State of the Union

President Obama’s State of the Union address was typical in many ways. The speech has devolved into a fairly limp laundry list of presidential hopes and dreams. Never missing an opportunity to score political points, both parties either stand or sit, depending on their affiliations. It is theater more than anything, and not the good kind.

Obama, however, did provide a robust vision of the future. It is, as Jamelle Bouie notes at Slate, a “muscular defense of the (Democrat) party’s liberalism.” Obama stumped for government-funded or subsidized college tuition, child care, and medical leave, as well as a tax increase on the wealthy to fund them. In this way, Bouie and other liberals were heartened by the address. (Here is the text of the talk.)

John Podhoretz, at the New York Post, and many conservatives, as you might guess, reacted a bit differently. Podhoretz put the speech in the context of the November elections where the President’s party suffered severe losses at the federal and state levels. Playing off Obama’s theme of turning the page away from America’s economic crisis and toward a brighter economic future (which Podhoretz acknowledges), he wrote:

Politically, the page that turned in November 2014 was the page in which Democrats held majorities in legislatures. The page didn’t just turn — it was torn out of the book, crumpled up and tossed in the garbage bin.

For him, the President’s speech was political folly with no serious chance for implementation and it showed no connection to political reality, either foreign or domestic.

The President tried to strike a bipartisan tone and he rhetorically reached across the aisle toward the G.O.P. At the same time, the substance of his proposals were, largely, designed to pander to his own base of support. He also took several opportunities to jab Republicans (“I won my two elections,” “we should set our sights higher than a pipeline”), which is odd if his goal is to work alongside them.

There are areas where the two sides could work together, at least in theory, but the details will likely be the snag. I think Republicans and the President would like to close some corporate loopholes in the tax code, but they will surely disagree over how to do that and for which corporate interests.

U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-IA) Republican response can be found here. Given the pressure, I thought she did well. As an ambitious politician, she was sure to provide her own story, which she did. Instead of rebutting the President’s address, she spoke on behalf of the Republican Congress and its agenda, which is, it seems, the opposite of what President Obama had just spent 70 minutes proposing.

Hillary Promises to Run a ‘Relevant’ Campaign This Time

The Washington Post ran a splashy story, by Anne Gearan, on Hillary Clinton’s emerging presidential campaign. The story promises that Clinton’s coterie learned from their mistakes last time and that their candidate will run a “research based” and “relevant” campaign. I suppose this is at least a tacit admission that Hillary’s 2008 effort was largely irrelevant. That is a pretty startling admission.

Whether Democrats like it or not, Hillary’s closest Republican analog is Mitt Romney. Though Hillary did not secure the nomination in 2008, she is a familiar, well-funded name who is often plastic in public and struggles to speak to regular people. She has the advantage, for sure, of being a historically significant candidate, but we will see if that is enough.

American Sniper–the Controversy

The success of American Sniper has stirred controversy, especially among those who disagree with the film’s portrayal of America’s military and the War on Terror. I have not yet seen the film, but here is an article that both references and tries to refute some of those criticisms. More to come on this later.