Thoughts on the SOTU

We needed leadership and got the exact opposite. We needed Barack Obama to stand up there and tell us what he plans to do to get us out of the economic chasm we are trapped in. Instead we got a wonkish 70-minute speech filled with lies and platitudes. It was a stump speech when we needed a rousing fight speech. We needed Reagan in 1983 or even Clinton in 1994 (who was hyper-partisan but at least sounded mostly presidential) but instead got Carter in every year.

I don't really want to discuss the contents of the speech but want to say what you will never hear anyone in the MSM say: Barack Obama is a public speaker. His cadence is irritating while he has no sense of when to break for applause lines. He drones instead of soaring. My son said he watched an interview and stopped counting at 50 "ums". That from a 13-year old.

The SOTU is not supposed to be a political speech per se but one in which the sitting president explains what he's planing and how it will be accomplished. We got none of that. We got business bashing and class warfare rhetoric when the very same people he slandered are the ones who will get us out of this mess.

The Obama administration is one year in and acts as if they arrived last week. They're a group of amateurs who are winging it and have no sense of what the country is feeling and going through. The only substantive thing uttered by The One was the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. The Joint Chiefs seemed to love that.

He had the chance to motivate people and instill hope and instead just added to the malaise.