State of the Union Breakdown

For those who voted for Barack Obama in 2008, his State of the Union was a return to the form that we all knew him in during the election.  The Obama of promises!  Of hope!  And so on.  The problem for those whose support he had a year ago, though, is that we’ve realize that he can’t do everything he says he’s going to do.  Obama has been really good at promising things, but not as good as following through.

Now, if you’re looking at him in terms of policy, you might say that rather than Obama not following through, the problem has been simply that reality has set in and that the Obamites have realized that he can’t reasonably follow through on all of the promises he’s made.  He just doesn’t have enough political power or legal authority to push a lot of these things through.

And really, a lot of what’s going wrong is Obama’s fault.  Not in the sense that he deserves the idiotic rage directed at him by first-class assholes like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, but in the sense that he’s being swallowed by the populism that he rode into office, much like the Republicans were nearly swallowed by the Religious Right wave they rode into office 9 years ago.

Fareed Zakaria perhaps put it best:

“The unfortunate part [with the economy] is that Obama’s policies have been, broadly speaking, correct, and the public’s perception is, broadly speaking, wrong.”

Which is true.  The bailout sucked, as Obama said in different words, but it was necessary.  The reasons for it being necessary should be examined, obviously, but under the current system, there was no other way around that.  We’ll see if he’s right about the recession being almost over.

I think Obama’s State of the Union was a return to form, he admitted mistakes and held himself responsible, but he still made a LOT of promises.  If he wants to get his credibility back, he needs to start following through on them

The Republican response was more or less the same old, same old, cut taxes, kill terrorists, etc.  Obama defeated the “cut taxes” part with a single line of reminder:

“The problem is, that’s what we did for eight years.”

Which people seem to have forgotten.

Republicans are nothing if not excellent at being underdogs, however, and they are able to get away with statements that are totally untrue about America having the “best healthcare system in the world,” and their usual failing to recognize the difference between protecting terrorists and prosecuting them legally in a court of law.

The verdict:  Obama’s State of the Union will give him about a three day boost, until he stops following through again.  And the populist waves will continue to bash him against his own ship.