State of the Union 2015

I once was a lad in knickers,

before the world fell for Snickers.™

I wanted a pony,

but just got a phoney,

and now must trust city slickers.

I like great speeches well delivered.

President Obama had a great speech drafted and delivered it well.

It was quite apparent that he relished poking his finger in the eyes of the generally silent Republicans, now the majority of the 114th Congress, including reminding them unnecessarily that he had been elected twice, even if his behavior and his party's leadership had been rejected at the polls in November.

What was promised was reminiscent of the types of promises he made in 2010 (also a mid-term election year.)

How long do we have to hear everything we want to hear, without wondering who is going to pay for all the gimmies? Oh, yes, the cost won't hurt because "the other guys" are going to pay for all that, and they will be the only ones whose pockets will be picked so we can have it all.

Let's see what wasn't mentioned. I didn't hear his solution for Guantanamo, though I have seen him frantically searching for places that will take those prisoners with no accounting for why they were there, what they did, or what it all meant.

There was little about who was going to build and add on to all those community colleges which would suddenly see free tuition students showing up for classes.

The Keystone Pipeline Project was too obviously a sticking point to mention now that his party had dropped the ball Senator Landrieu (D) of Louisiana had wanted in order to try to salvage her bid for her return to the Senate.

The role his earlier scapegoat Bush II had played, with Bush II's own financial stimulus, was ignored as it would have recognized that Obama hadn't done all the turn around by himself, nor were the Federal Reserve and its governors toasted with any portion of the credit.

While "equal pay for equal work" got a standing ovation from his side of the hall, there was no explanation offered for why it hadn't been taken care of when he first sat in the White House and his party controlled the Congress they have now lost control of.

No victory was declared in Iraq or Afghanistan, Syria, or The Ukraine, for there wasn't any, other than that his generals took most of their soldiers home to a welcoming nation whose veterans hospitals and Veterans Administration had been, and may still be, woefully ill-prepared to receive them.

Frankly, America survived a cliff hanger of an economic disaster as much because others acted, and millions endured, than because a speech boasted of leadership accomplishments the voters had so recently found lacking in substance.

Meanwhile the rose-colored glasses were overlooking the still too-big-to-fail banks, the lost wages and retirement savings of the "beneficiaries" of a national health insurance program that forces millions to "sign up or pay a penalty" for not flocking in droves to sing hallelujah.

The State of the Union 2015 was delivered magnificently....as a speech, while the policies that the speaker had declared the November mid-term elections "are all about" had fallen on deaf ears, except for the remnant of his team of supporters that chose to cheer him on to even greater glory.

If you saw and listened to his speech, the bullet points were finely crafted. But did you hear the sarcasm and petulance he directed at the majority of the people's representatives he now sees as standing in the way of his crafting his own vision of his legacy?

Here is a Hub article on what lies ahead for the 114th Congress and a lame duck president who still hasn't reached across the aisle for the good of the country as a whole: "2015 A Mirror Of 2014?" for which a link is posted at the end of this commentary.

If you will read that Hub, you will realize that problems that faced America in 2008 form a long list of problems which still face America after six years of President Obama's leadership, one third of which were years when he and his party were in full control. Now the president and the parties must share the power, if any of his promises of progress are to be realized....even the realistic promises.

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© 2015 Demas W. Jasper All rights reserved.