Consistent Political Posturing

from The Gray Area:

President Obama delivers a good speech, all the time. But it’s the content in the State of the Union address that really matters, not the delivery.

Think about it. Could a Republican President have made this speech? Yes, absolutely. The high minded American vision, values and mission statements he made are so general that any politician could and have made them. The policy proposals he made behind those statements are obviously where the differences exist. The policy content was more of the same: more spending, more regulation, and more government.

The differences also exist in his use of the general American vision, values and mission statements, because they are inconsistent with his words and actions over the last six years. And even more frustrating is the fact that it is incumbent on us to surgical dissect the words he uses to find out what he is actually claiming or saying and how it supports or not his mission statements. This careful word-smithing is certainly politics as usual, but distracts the listener from the real mission of the speaker.

We’ve heard it all before and we don’t believe him. As was our review of his 2014 SOTU speech and every speech the President makes, this was just more political double talk.

He was not speaking to the American people, he was speaking to his supporters. Using words that the American people like to hear, to appear in control, confident and successful. Even though his record is pitiful and he just got badly beaten in the 2014 mid-term elections. That’s why his applause lines got standing O’s from the Democrats and crickets from the Republicans in attendance. His desire here was to show those not applauding as not being interested in improving the country and supporting his general American vision, values and mission statements. Political posturing, not leadership.

–Pres Obama spent the first 90% of his speech making polarizing comments. Then spends the last 10% decrying polarization. He dropped consistent demeaning jabs at the Republicans like, “little pipeline”, trying to prepare the country for Congress inevitable passage of a Keystone Pipeline bill and his equally inevitable veto. His comment about the need to stop political demonization of the opposition was laughable because his party and himself in particular are the consistent users of this despicable tactic.

-He takes credit for the economy which has been the worse recovery since the great depression. He claims 11 million jobs created, yet fewer people are working today then when he became President and they are working at lower paying jobs. Debt and government spending continues to be out of control and he wants to add more.

-He takes credit for gas prices, which he wanted to go up when he was elected in 2009 so that the costs of renewable energy options wouldn’t look so bad in comparison. Now what does he want?

-He takes credit for energy independence, while doing everything he could over the past 6 years to limit energy development at home. However, shale production in states like North Dakota and Texas he could not control.

-He says that the United States is still leading the world and as a result the world is a better, safer place. Russia, Iran and terrorism have been marginalized. Issues in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan are controlled. What world is he living in? None of that is true.

–About 112 of his SOTU promises remain unfulfilled since 2009. And that is after having a Democratically controlled Congress for 2 years and a Democratically controlled Senate for all 6 years. Clearly Republicans in Congress have not been his problem. He said he wants to “seek to work with Republicans“, but for some reason when he had control of Congress he was not interested in that strategy.

Near the end of his speech, you find these two sets of phrases:
– “…I swore an oath to do what I think is best for America…” Actually, that’s not the oath he took. It may be the one he accepted, but the oath he took was to protect the Constitution of the United States of America. He has said before he thinks the Constitution is a document of negative rights and he wants to change it.
– “…we have begun the work of remaking America…” Focus on the word, “remaking”.

These words, “oath” and “remaking” get back to Pres Obama’s real mission. He said when he was running for President in 2008 that he wanted two things:
1. to fundamentally change this country.
2. to redistribute wealth.
In his first 6 years in office everything he does supports these two things. In his speech tonight, everything he says, oath and remaking, means these two things. Remaking America according to his oath will continue to divide, not united, this country. This is because his Marxist ideology is contrary to the ideology of the Founders, which is the ideology that has made this country great. A leader that reinforces those founding principles, not talks about them and then tears them down, is what is needed.

This is the entire SOTU speech as uploaded by The New York Times.