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Barry's first SOTU, The Audacity of Petulance

I took a bunch of notes during Barry's State of the Union speech but I was too tired to post anything last night so here goes...

Pundette has a very comprehensive roundup of opinions to which I can only add a few comments.

Barry started out looking down his nose at us. Even my wife noticed; she said he was "condescending". It took him a while to work up into full-on petulance, but when he took a swipe at the Supreme Court it really showed his immaturity. From then on in he was on his stride, channeling Hugo Chavez for all he's worth.

He's the President dammit! And we'd damn well better sit up and take notice! Or, he'll scold us again!

Puh-lease. Leadership requires persuasion, not petulance.

He's still pushing class warfare, harping on "big banks". What about "big unions"? The UAW got more bailout money than the banks did. The banks paid theirs back already.

He cut taxes? Not for me he didn't. And don't forget, if you did get a "Making Work Pay" tax credit, Barry wants it back.

His Porkulus "Recovery Act" hasn't been proven successful, no matter how many made-up jobs "created or saved" numbers he throws out. Even his own guys can't decide whether it's 2 million, 4 million, or more likely, zero. And his idea of a "Jobs Bill" is just Porkulus II.

When it comes to the economy he's still blaming Bush. You've been in charge for a year now Barry. Time to take some resonsibility. Did you hear the laughter when he brought up his "spending freeze". Even his own guys think it's a joke. Yes Barry, they're laughing at you.

He's still got the same tired old ObamaCare talking points. That ship has sailed. And what's with "my plan"? He doesn't have a plan! Harry Reid has a plan, larded up with so many bribes it finally collapsed under its own weight. Nancy Pelosi had a plan, until Reid's came along, but neither of them can decide what to do next.

I'd take his platitudes about education policy a lot more seriously if he backed them up with some solid action. Like, oh I don't know, reinstating the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program? You know, something that actually works.

Caps on student loan payments? So a kid can just rack up the bills and then a magic unicorn is going to cover the difference if his payments exceed 10% of his income? And after 20 years all loans are forgiven, even if they're not paid off? How's that gonna work? More importantly, why would any of us chumps save for our kid's college education if we can get a deal like that?

He didn't say much about terrorism, except to chide Republicans for "schoolyard taunts" about who's tougher. Listen up sport, if you gotta tell us how tough you are maybe it's because you haven't actually shown anyone that you've got what it takes. Talk is cheap. And terrorists don't need lawyers, no matter what you or Eric ("The FALN Kid") Holder might think.

Setting yet another line-in-the-sand deadline for withdrawal from Iraq ("the end of August") seems unwise to me. BTW Barry, speaking of deadlines, how's that deadline for closing Gitmo working out for you?

I did hear two things that I liked! I even rewound the TiVo to make sure he actually said what I thought I'd heard. Yup, he endorsed nuclear power. And he alluded to us needing more offshore oil and gas exploration. Drill, Baby, Drill! Unfortunately they're probably just throw-away lines, and he won't follow through. Especially since he followed them up with a pitch for Cap & Tax, which has been dead and really should stay that way.

All in all this was not a State of the Union speech as much as it was another campaign stump speech. Except that since being elected he's campaigned 3 times already and struck out each time. Of course, if one were to point that out to him, he'd probably blame Bush!

Posted at 11:12 by Chris Wysocki   [/obama_watch]   Comments | Archived | Perm Link |
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