The State of O

I watched the 70+ minutes of vapid promises and childish tantrums last night that was billed as the "State of the Union."  This morning, I have perused the news (domestic and international) and the blogs (conservative and liberal) and across the board, no one is happy with what was said.  I won't drag you through the long list of proposals, but here in bullet point format are some notes and thoughts:

• The speech felt cobbled together...it was a strange mix of focus group verbiage from both liberal and conservative groups.  The table scraps he was throwing to the center and right were strained coming off his tongue, and strange to hear: "nuclear power," "drilling off-shore," "capital gains tax cut."  All of these are throw aways, he knows the Congress will never take these up.
• Stop whining!  I counted twenty plus times in the speech that Obama referred to all the problems he inherited.  He's like the crybaby in the play yard - "It's not my fault!"  Hey Barry - you wanted the job, you got the job, grow up and do your job.
• A direct tongue lashing of the Supreme Court justices sitting directly in front of him for their decision in the Citizens United v. FEC case was shocking.  This is reminiscent of the thug tactics used by South American dictators, totally inappropriate to the Office of the President.
• Ditto, his combative almost street-ball banter with the Republican side of the chamber.  Taunting them about not standing and applauding his line about tax cuts was, to be candid, immature.
• He continued the Clinton/Bush strategy of a machine gun chamber emptying barrage of "proposals."  I am exhausted by this and, I expect, so are the American people.  It would be wise to heed the advice of Sophocles: "What you cannot enforce, do not command."  A President should lay out his priorities and then get out of the way.
• Promises, promises.  Now that he has been on the world stage for a couple of years everyone should have learned the lesson that it matters not what this man says, it is what he does.  He flat out lies, like the whopper he told about "not being part of the health care back room deals."  Bwa ha ha ha ha!!  Or how about this one: "I didn't need to have a health care bill signed to give this speech..."  ROFLMAO.
• He did not "pivot," or "change course" except with some crumbs thrown to the middle class and younger voters about college credits and forgiving college debts.  He actually demanded that the Congress take up the healthcare bill and move forward with cap and trade!  My guess is a good number of these folks have had it with the magic of O and those two are DOA.  When the car is headed for the cliff, it is a bad idea to slam the accelerator to the floor.

In all, it was tiresome.  The technique - the three seconds to either teleprompter head swivel - has already grown old.  This may well have sealed his fate as a one term president.