Just ten minutes ago, I finished listening to Obama's first State of the Union Address. It left me with far more questions than answers and the feeling that if he succeeds in even half of what he seems to be promising, I will be compelled (by my own opinoin of politicians) to worship him as the greatest president of all time - he will not succeed, at least not that much. He has promised budget cuts, but never explained where these cuts will come from, so I wonder how he'll keep that particular promise.
While the address left me quite somber as to the prospects of our government, one line of Obama's will leave me laughing for ages. "We cannot wage a perpetual campaign," he said, speaking of Congress; but look whose talking, campaigner extraordinaire! Much of what Obama has done all year was campaign. Any level of hypocrisy, no matter how small, should be avioded at all cost by a political figure as important as the President of the United States.
In class, we were asked to pay atention to what garners applause. Sorry, Bolos and O'Connor, I did a bit of the opposite. I noticed, when Obama spoke of removing the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" laws for gays in the military, that the military personnel in the front rows, right up near Obama, didn't raise, didn't applaud, in fact, they were all frowning; and while I have hypotheses as to why, I would still love to know what others think of this.
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I also just finished watching the address, and I was compelled to notice each time Obama said something that the crowd (or specific parts of it) deemed worthy of a standing ovation. What I noticed was that most of the terms that earned the president the most applause were his most open-ended promises and phrases. Statements like, "I have never been more hopeful about America's future than I am tonight," made me beg the question, why?? What has he done to make himself so confident? I also found it interesting that almost every one of his applause-worthy moments, there was a whole half of the room that wasn't applauding at all. Obama talked about all of the economic problems he inherited when he came into office, at which point Senator John McCain leaned over to those next to him and said, "blame it on Bush..." (from what I could lip-read, anyway).
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying that these republicans don't have reason to be skeptical of Obama's decisions, because even I myself was very confused and doubtful of how much of his plan would actually work; but I think that one admirable trait our president showed tonight was his commitment. There was one point at which he related the United States to India, China and Germany, claiming that those countries were taking the initiative to better their democracy, while America is sitting idly by just waiting for things to get better. Things aren't going to get better, and even though he may be thinking a little TOO big, I think Obama's passion for change and his ideas for the future are forceful enough to get things done.