News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Jan. 15, 2016: I have to apologize to Michelle Obama.
This series is Obama’s America. Yet week after week it is Barack and more Barack. I hardly mention Michelle. I do get Michelle in from time to time but not enough. I’m sorry you deserve more attention Michelle, especially since you play such an important role in making Barack the man he is, God help us!
What brought me to this realization? Michele was thoughtful enough to send me a personal email early this week. Michelle was sad and she thought enough of me to share her sad feelings.
Here is what Michelle had to say in a mournful way. “On Tuesday, my husband will deliver his seventh and final State of the Union address.” While I feel her pain, that idea overjoyed me. Finally the LAST Barack Obama State of the Union speech! My response: Hallelujah!
And guess what? Next I got a personal email from President Obama himself. And he was sad to. He told me the obvious but still it was touching – yes, this would be his final State of the Union speech.
Barack then got very personal he wrote: “As I put the final touches on my State of the Union address, I can’t help but look back on the last seven years. We’ve traveled a long road together.”
Yes Barack it has been a long road. A long fun filled road for you; filled with Air Force One, lots of golf on exclusive courses, long exotic vacations, and living the very good life at our expense in The White House.
But for the rest of us it’s just been a long road; a road of broken promises that you would make a real difference as President for the rest of us.
And that is a good point to turn to your final State of the Union speech. It was more of the same in an unfortunate way he said nothing much at all. It reminded me of his first Inaugural speech in 2009 but with all the expectation now gone. Then expectations were sky high and President Obama delivered a lack luster speech to not inspire no one. Then he told us by what he did not say that he would simply be another typical Democratic President.
He did not disappoint is in a convoluted way. He fulfilled that promise. In that way his last State of the Union speech proved it once again.
President Obama could have used this week’s speech to do what he has not done the last 7 years become the President we thought we were electing 7 years ago. Instead true to form he did no such thing. The best way to characterize the speech is completely forgettable.
Back to his email to me before the speech: “But after seven years as your president, I’ve never been more optimistic about what we can accomplish together. We’ve come back from tough times stronger than before. We’ve shown the world that we’re not afraid of the future, we’re ready to lead it.”
Hey Barack, all you have done is maintained the Status Quo in America. In fact, the very richest Americans are even richer now than before Obama became President and the rest of us are not!
So for African-Americans who were the most optimistic about the Obama Presidency, well believe it or not, and I am sure you do – because it is true Black Americans have fared the worst of all.
Only a ‘minority’ of well off Africans-Americans can feel positive about the future after 7 years of Barack Obama and guess what? They would have been in the very same position they are if Obama had not become President. If we had a White President!
African-Americans should be up in arms over the Obama Presidency but I understand their quandary. To forcefully criticize Obama feels like criticizing oneself – at least we do have a BLACK President. But that is a wrongheaded strategy – Blacks giving Obama a free ride. He could have done so much but he did not. He did not want to be a Black President just President.
It would have taken courage and leadership to be a Black President.
We are all the worse off for it because it is Black American misery and disappointment that highlights the bleak future for many more Americans.
So with that said and with a cynical nod to Michelle Obama let’s take a quick look all it deserves at Obama’s final State of the Union speech. What others might call the highlights we better described as the low lights.
Let’s go right to the source material the transcript of his speech and see what I can find worth repeating here …
“I want to go easy on the traditional list of proposals for the year ahead. Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty, from helping students learn to write computer code to personalizing medical treatments for patients.”
So President Obama starts by letting us know don’t have any high expectations for this speech just more of the same in my final year.
How about this ….
“We live in a time of extraordinary change — change that’s reshaping the way we live, the way we work, our planet, our place in the world. It’s change that promises amazing medical breakthroughs, but also economic disruptions that strain working families.”
And President Obama you have done nothing to make it better. Thanks.
Then he pours on the empty rhetoric …
“We made change work for us, always extending America’s promise outward, to the next frontier, to more people. And because we did, because we saw opportunity where others saw peril, we emerged stronger and better than before.”
Yea, yea, yea …
“Will we respond to the changes of our time with fear, turning inward as a nation, turning against each other as a people? Or will we face the future with confidence in who we are, in what we stand for, and the incredible things we can do together? So let’s talk about the future, and four big questions that I believe we as a country have to answer, regardless of who the next president is or who controls the next Congress.”
Then President Obama gives us the four Big Questions …
First, how do we give everyone a fair shot at opportunity and security in this new economy?
Second, how do we make technology work for us, and not against us, especially when it comes to solving urgent challenges like climate change?
Third, how do we keep America safe and lead the world without becoming its policeman?
And finally, how can we make our politics reflect what’s best in us, and not what’s worst?
ANSWER .. President Obama does not have a Clue because if he did he would have provided those answers the last 7 years but did not.
What Obama does next is launch into a long diatribe about these 4 questions. I will spare my readers because I care too much for you. What I will tell you is that he uses the pretext of this philosophical babble to mask that this is a speech about nothing.
After that wind, we are provided the most ridiculous moment in this entire mess. Let me give it to you straight from the transcript …
“I’m announcing a new national effort to get it done. And because he’s gone to the mat for all of us on so many issues over the past 40 years, I’m putting Joe ( Biden ) in charge of mission control.”
“For the loved ones we’ve all lost, for the families that we can still save, let’s make America the country that cures cancer once and for all. What do you think? Let’s make it happen.”
Cure cancer? Do you know how many times over the last decades that “promise” has been made? Unless you forget Richard Nixon was one. As the entire scientific community knows, “cancer” is not a single disease that can be cured. There are hundreds, if not thousands of different cancers.
And what trillions of new federal dollars did Obama announce in his speech to “cure” cancer? None at all, but he did put Joe Biden in charge of the project for the one year left that Joe will be Vice President. Wow!
Even better, let’s “cure” cancer in just one year. Get going Joe!
Well that was easy. President Obama just “cured” cancer!
I won’t make you put up with much more of this. Promise.
Let me go to the end of the speech and spare you the rest.
“I believe in change because I believe in you, the American people. And that’s why I stand here, as confident as I have ever been, that the state of our Union is strong.”
Yes it is true Obama is still selling empty Change with no substance to it.
Let me turn to President Obama’s email to me for his final words tonight.
“With one year left in my presidency, I’m still fired up and ready to go.”
Appreciate the irony. Obama is still fired up and ready to go nowhere for us.
