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Obama offers conciliatory tone in speech
WASHINGTON—President Obama delivered his State of the Union address to Congress under a cloud of new political realities: Republicans made massive election gains in November, taking the U.S. House and gaining ground in the Senate.
The president pointed out the obvious truth that no legislation would move forward without Republican and Democratic support. So he offered a conciliatory tone, which also left his speech without many rousing moments.
Economic recovery was the centerpiece of the speech, and the president’s philosophy on how to spur growth remained unchanged. He proposed government “investment” in education, research, and development that would spur the economy and create jobs, which he called “the first step in winning the future.” . . . MORE >>
Read Emily Belz’s complete report from Washington here.
back to top28 Comments to “Obama offers conciliatory tone in speech”
Well, he didn’t send the Rs to the back of the bus this year, but can anyone believe that he’s willing to pick up the R agenda? He tried to co-opt a lot of the Repub agenda. Didn’t sound to me as if he is serious about cutting anything. I think he just paid lip service and that he plans to send out Schumer to dis the R response, not to mention that he’s going to Wisconsin to discuss his “five pillars” for economic growth.
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I didn’t watch the speech.
I figure that if he says something important, Rush’ll tell me.
Sure.
I trust Rush more than I do Obama.
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“Depending on bureaucracy to foster innovation, competitiveness, and wise consumer choices has never worked—and it won’t work now,” he said.
Ever heard of NASA? DARPA? NIH?
A LOT of things we have now, including the Internet, GPS navigation and a good number of medical technologies and drugs, have come directly from “Depending on bureaucracy to foster innovation, competitiveness, and wise consumer choices.”
This is a problem for Republicans — the arguments Republicans make are often contradicted by reality.
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Tell that to the people who are out of work and have been for three years now — they exist. People my age cannot find work. And NASA and NIH ain’t the ticket, Conan. Leftists never face reality and have no concept of what it is like for the average person.
Not to mention that Obama still wants to spend. We are BROKE, on the verge of BANKRUPTCY. What will it take for you to understand that?
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I didn’t watch more than a sentence or two either: waste of time. Obama’s promises are almost always contradicted by reality as far as I’m concerned. I don’t care if the R’s work with him or not. They just need to prevent him from doing any more damage than he already has until 2012. It’s a waiting game now.—Unfortunately he already has everything he needs in the form of regulatory power to cause devastating damage due to the Healthcare reform law and the Financial Regulation law. It will be hard to recover from those wrecking balls.
I watched Ryan’s and Bachman’s speeches. They were both very good. Bachman was very impressive. Now they need to follow through.
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I watched the whole speech. His words seemed conciliatory in tone. There was no mocking or calling Republicans the enemy or telling them to shut up and get in the back of the bus. But the content was still that of an ideologue trying to push his agenda of massive government, except now without a monopoly on power.
I almost fell over when Obama said he will “work to rebuild people’s faith in the institution of government”. This proves he has a wooden ear and never really got the message.
Using faith-based language our “spiritual leader” wants the people to put their faith in government. Washington is all that matters.
He talked about innovation, but we know that if a corporation ever succeeds it will be declared “greedy” and the supposed ill gotten gain will be taken away and redistributed to the unsuccessful.
I do support ending subsidies to oil companies, but let’s end all subsidies. He said nothing about energy independence other than going green sometime after we’re all dead.
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“work to rebuild people’s faith in the institution of government”.
What a clueless liberal. That horse escaped the barn YEARS ago. And I don’t think it’s going back in…
If anything, if he’ll do his best to get the government OUT OF THE DANG WAY, then I might believe our economy may return. If not, we’re gonna see our perks go away when the YUAN becomes the global standard of currency.
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I didn’t like that he did not ONCE say the word “Constitution” in his speech. That shows where his ideologies and priorities lie (which we all knew, anyway).
I also didn’t like that he said “strengthen Social Security” instead of reform the major entitlement programs. I think people of my generation (those born in the 1980’s) are perfectly willing and eager to phase out the entire system. I doubt any of us 20 and 30 somethings truly believe we’ll get anything when we retire because the programs will either completely break our system, or somebody will finally have had the guts to reform/phase out the programs.
I did like that he recommends ending No Child Left Behind, though I think his focus on math and science education is too narrow focused. It’s pointless to push math and science on kids that can’t read and don’t know how to think.
I also like that he’s going to get us out of Iraq. I think, based on many World articles about Afghanistan, that we should just completely pull out of there, too. If we support an Afghan constitution that doesn’t provide safeguards against religious persecution (especially of Christians), and Karzai is threatening to allow the Taliban back in anyway, what was the whole flipping point of going there and continuing to fight “al-qaeda” which is more of an ideology than a people. Al-qaeda just keeps moving, and the American people will not (or at least should not) put up with shifting our war from country to country. We need to just strongly secure our borders to protect our own safety so we have the time and resources to get our financial house in order, which will be our biggest defense if we can actually handle this crippling debt.
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Yeah, the bureaucracy accounts for the accomplishments of NASA, et al. When you throw literally jillions of dollars into a program, it’s bound to accomplish a few things, and what it does accomplish, it does so in spite of government bureaucracy. We don’t know what similar, private interests might have accomplished, undoubtedly with less bureaucracy and for less money. Or, since private entities are responsive to the market, maybe they’d have accomplished something different and more useful than what huge govt programs have.
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The speech was a bunch of ‘newspeak,’ hash, tired old ideas, blah, blah blah. Government is not the answer to the problem, government is the problem.
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Word of the Day – fatuous: Foolish or silly, especially in a smug or self-satisfied way.
HT: NRO
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#9 Good points Macrotabaga. We used to have a saying at a large company I worked for, “We followed the process and succeeded anyway!” In other words, people actual can succeed occasionally despite the bureaucracy.
I thought it was funny when Obama was poking fun at how ridiculous government bureaucracy can be. He talked about Salmon being handled by different agencies depending on whether they were in fresh or salt water. He mentioned this as though he were going to reform it. He won’t. He’ll probably create 5 more agencies instead.
What is hilarious (in a sad sort of way) is how everyone knows government is inept and wasteful, including liberals, but liberals still insist on handing over more power and wealth to this beast.
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I listened to all three speeches, since I have learned that when you get them filtered by anyone else, you don’t necessarily hear what you would have heard. It is good to get a variety of opinions, too, but better to hear it yourself, if you can. After listening to them all, I have to say, I was not moved in any way. It was all a big yawn. Now onto the real battles.
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KI, I have often found that the best way to be objective is to forego the speeches and read them for yourself the next day (if time allows). That way, you focus more on the actual content (substance) and not the glitz, style, reactions, and “tone.” Many don’t prefer this because it is less entertaining, but the point stands, I think.
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By the way, in this case I did not forego the speeches. If I am busy or cannot see them (as was the case other times in the past) and I read them later, I do experience greater objectivity overall.
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“when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity, but God is the one you must fear.” Ecclesiastes 5:7
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The issues is many of the people of this nation do not belive Obama is telling the truth. That his speech was just words only and he has no attention of following threw with his words.
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Becky, I heard the word “Constitution”.
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#17 Pastor Roy “The issue is many of the people of this nation do not belive Obama is telling the truth.”
This explains the President’s popularity ratings. When asked whether they LIKE the President, most people would say yes. When asked whether they BELIEVE the President, most people would say no.
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Obama said he will “work to rebuild people’s faith in the institution of government”
Duh!! since the main difference between fiscal liberals and conservatives is:
Fiscal liberals trust government and fear business.
Fiscal conservatives fear government and have a greater trust of business.
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ie. he wants us to think like liberals.
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WHY would any rational person who pays attention trust private businesses to work toward the common good? Private businesses work toward making profits, and to the extent regulations allow them, may underpay workers, cause ecological damage and otherwise seek to reduce costs at the expense of quality or safety.
Government, which is made up of representatives elected by the people, is designed to work for the common good without regard to making a profit. It does not always succeed, and it does cost money, but the accusation that government is overall incompetent and wasteful is counterfactual.
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Spoken like a true liberal Conan. The reason is that business have to produce what people want or they go elsewhere. They vote with their pocketbook. And they don’t have to wait two, four, or six years for an election to change who they vote for.
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And also if only some want to go elsewhere, those that want to go can, and those that don’t want to go can stay.
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Ah yes, the almighty free market. The free market can influence prices to an extent, and that’s about it. And that’s counterproductive if the drive to lower prices pushes businesses to cut corners on safety, lay off workers or keep wages low.
The number of consumers who care enough about such issues to boycott a business is too small, most of the time, to force changes. Better working conditions are largely due to the evil unions. Safer workplaces, sanitary food production and product safety are a product of government regulation.
And when all businesses engage in a practice, such as denying insurance coverage to people with a pre-existing condition, where else are consumers going to go?
You are correct that businesses have to produce “what people want.” But what people want is a decent product at a low price — everything else is secondary from the market forces perspective.
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I didn’t say that business is perfect or that all government is useless or harmful. But with its power and heavy hand it can do much more damage, so is feared. We can’t easily go elsewhere.
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Our system is set up to spread that power over a large number of people. Ultimately, the government can’t do anything that people don’t want done. They govern by consent of the governed, not by heredity or overthrow. Any individual member of government can be removed from office peacefully if he or she doesn’t serve the constituents as the constituents want.
I think the right’s distrust of government is greatly overblown compared to the government’s actual power. Ultimately, the power of the government IS the people.
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#27 “Our system is set up to spread that power over a large number of people. “
So why then do you favor the centralization of power in the hand of a few corrupt bureaucrats to pick winners and losers rather than letting the market decide? The thing about the free market is that it is free. That is what liberty is about.
“Any individual member of government can be removed from office peacefully if he or she doesn’t serve the constituents as the constituents want.”
The problem is that can take decades. And if we’re talking about liberal districts, then the more corrupt a politician is the more likely he will never be voted out.
“I think the right’s distrust of government is greatly overblown compared to the government’s actual power.”<
Yeah, that's what you were saying when Bush was president.
” Ultimately, the power of the government IS the people.”
Theoretically, but not in practice. Government doesn’t operate by normal rules. If a business makes bad decisions it goes under. Government has no incentive to make good decisions.
Someone could spend a lifetime fighting the bad decision of government and barely make a scratch, since government has unlimited power and wealth and the full force of the police and military to make you comply. In the mean time, it has made thousands of other bad decisions while you spent your whole life just working to correct just one.
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