I was struck by the way in which President Obama’s State of the Union speech was structured, with each issue laid out inthe same pattern: start with the conservative talking point, then move to the progressive positionas though the progressive-leaning positions were being given the rhetorical back seat. Only when the speech spoke of unity of worthwhile purposes did it capture what makes a nation great.

But Jerry Ford would have thought it was too conservative… But as usual, Obama benefits from who his opposing critics are. Such as this man, best known for defending endless wars fought for illegitimate reasons with the tactic of implying treason upon their opponents.           Well, that is timely criticism indeed [...]

Tonight the President will deliver the State of the Union Address, at the beginning of his run for re-election. Unlike Obama’s other addresses to a joint session of Congress, I wouldn’t expect this one to produce much in the way of a legislative blueprint. It’s an election year, and most of the major issues will be determined by the outcome of that election. The President will instead try to set the agenda for the fall campaign with this speech, and the early excerpts show his focus on an economy “built to last.” Not unlike a Ford truck.

Small hints have been dribbled out to journalists ahead of tonight’s State of the Union Address, which in an election year invariably signals an attempt by an incumbent running for re-election to set the terms of the debate, to state what they will campaign on throughout the year. Looks like the focus will be on tax reform, housing, energy, but how will this President go to confront an obstructionist Congress and his own instincts?

This is the second edition of my little experiment; in case you missed last week’s introduction, The Party Line is my attempt to take the ideas and thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head all week, and use them to kick off a weekend’s worth of conversation.

The White House is generally pretty pleased with what they’ve done, they don’t think they’re likely to get anything additional from Congress – which they’re right about, but that assumes that the executive branch has no authority of its own – and they’re going to just engage in happy, sunny, Reagan-esque optimistic talk and hope the economy comes back on its own. There are some things – like a new budget – that must be done, and there we shall see where talk meets action. But basically, the White House is done, and they’re quite happy with their efforts. If you want to be real charitable, they think it’s the best they can do.

In addition to the lack of discussion of the economic crisis, particularly the forgotten foreclosure crisis, one thing that struck many observers of the State of the Union address was no mention of gun safety, just a couple weeks after the Tucson shooting rampage and the assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

The speech the President gave shouldn’t look this good by comparison. Sadly, it did.

Obama talked about how anything is possible in America, but for 15-25 million unemployed, that’s no longer true. He talked about the ability for someone with a dream to rise to the top, but for someone who’s had their home taken from them illegally, that’s not true. He talked about the spirit of entrepreneurship making this country great, but unless that entrepreneurship is a financial innovation, that’s not really true. This isn’t an upwardly mobile country anymore, statistically speaking. And it’s a country, in the short term, in crisis.

If Obama actually thinks there are wasteful discretionary programs, like ethanol subsidies and farm subsidies, he should just directly call for those programs to be eliminated. If ending a bunch of bad corporate welfare programs results in an overall cut in discretionary spending, that is good.