Watched the President’s State of the Union speech last night. I got what I expected. The usual laundry list of new programs, tough talk and patriotic speechifying.
I’d give it B-minus … mostly for President Obama’s skill as a speaker.
Glad to be here? You must be a Dem.
You know what killed me though? Everything else that surrounded the speech. All the boring, predictable performances turned in by politicians, the media and, yes, us. Citizens.
I know you caught Joe Biden sitting behind the President like Pinocchio in a fancy suit. Did he really have to nod every 30 seconds to signal his support? And what’s up with Nancy Pelosi? Is her face frozen in that grin? I thought I’d mistakenly flipped on Batman on HBO and she was playing The Joker.
Speaker Pelosi, is that you?
Then there’s the Republicans. Those old white guys kept grimacing for a solid 70 minutes. And they held their applause like my Uncle Nat holding on to the first dollar he ever earned.
We get it. You hated every minute of the speech. Every proposal. Every word. Gee, what a shock.
Afterward, I flipped around. Amazingly, every Dem on CNN called the speech gutsy, triumphant. Every Republican on Fox thought it was an incoherent disgrace.
Twitter and the blogs? Same deal. My Dem pals argued Obama gave the Gettysburg Address on steroids. My conservative friends? They dismissed him as a traitor … or worse.
Nowadays, it seems impossible for people to simply respond with independent thought. I mean, is it crazy to listen to the President and think, gee, he has a great point on repealing don’t ask, don’t tell. But, wow, did he let us down by ignoring immigration reform almost entirely.
Help the middle class? Expand tax credits for child care? Great. Reform health care letting government run it? Idiotic.
I’m sorry. I don’t mean to scare anyone by actually thinking for myself. I saw it last night and I see it every day: Free thought is dead in America in 2010.
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