President Obama's State of the Union
President Barack Obama during his State of the Union.
The president reestablished his leadership of America tonight as he heads into the second half of his term in office calling on the nation to do what it needs to fulfill the promise of winning the future. He reached back two generations in American history to the era of John F. Kennedy when that young president led the start of the space age as a critical element of winning the Cold War.
President Obama called this time this generation’s Sputnik moment. Just as the Soviet’s beating us into space inspired a swift pace of technological advancement he sees this recession as grounds for inspiration to propel us into an advanced information age that features clean energy and an economy built on the best educational system in the world.
There are years when president’s come to this late January address wrestling to find an agenda that will work. There are years, thankfully, when an administration can pick issues it wants to push instead of having the issues pushed in front of them. However, the State of the Union is much different when we have the threat of war or the threat of economic collapse fresh in our minds.
Even though markets have rebounded and the seemingly bottomless fall over two years has ended our economic engine has yet to start chugging forward again. The president said our “destiny remains our choice” because of our people. He showed confidence that the United States can accomplish greatness in ways we have yet to imagine.
Critics of the president quickly asked about specifics. They questioned how he could accomplish the big picture without spending too much. But, even republican freshman Congresswoman Anne Marie Buerkle of Syracuse conceded to me tonight President Obama set the right tone in the House chamber.
President Obama has roughly another year to govern, before politics swallow his attention and the republican candidates for president start on the attack. This was a strong first night in this New Year.
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