So the SOTU is tonight and Obama is planning a rousing speech in which he will try to cheerlead everybody outt of the Depression Bush created and he has done little to expunge.
President Barack Obama will devote most of his first State of the Union address on Wednesday to fixing an economy that has sapped the nation's spirits and eroded his standing, with calls for tax cuts for small businesses and more restraint from a government that keeps piling up debt.
Obama will start on the economy and spend about two-thirds of his prime-time speech on that topic, the one most on the minds of Americans. His goal is to show a dissatisfied nation in plainspoken and specific terms that he understands their frustration and their struggles, and that his vast agenda is in touch with what they need.
You know, the Villagers and the New Democrat/GOP are all frantic about Teh Deficit! EEEK! but I don't know anybody else who is. The economy is the problem along with Obama's blind surrender to Wall Street, presumably in some wishful thinking that they might, you know, leave a little for everybody else (Phat Chance). And according to the NYT's Jeff Zeleny, he realizes that might be a teensy problem so he's going to try a Bush: take the "responsibility" for not moving fast enough while refusing to admit that turning $BILLIONS$$ over to Wall Street didn't change anything very much.
When Mr. Obama presents his first State of the Union address on Wednesday evening, aides said he would accept responsibility, though not necessarily blame, for failing to deliver swiftly on some of the changes he promised a year ago. But he will not, aides said, accede to criticism that his priorities are out of step with the nation’s.
As Mr. Obama navigates a crossroads of his presidency, a moment when he signals what lessons he has drawn from his first year in office, the public posture of the White House is that any shortcomings are the result of failing to explain effectively what they were doing — and why. He will acknowledge making mistakes in pursuit of his agenda, aides said, but will not toss the agenda overboard in search of a more popular one.
Which is to say, they're not going to quit giving Wall Street money just because Main Street is complaining. Which is to say, "Main Street? STFU." Which is what Wall Street wants to hear, naturally. Those bonuses and big salaries, you know, have to come from somewhere.
A handful of big banks that are struggling in the postbailout world are, by some measures, the industry’s most magnanimous employers. Roughly 90 cents out of every dollar that these banks earned in 2009 — and sometimes more — is going toward employee salaries, bonuses and benefits, according to company filings.
This isn't going to woprk even a little bit.[ We already fell for this routine a dozen times from Bush and we know better. Nobody's going to buy it. He hasn't opened his mouth and already we're not buying it. We know he doesn't mean it. It will be a waste of Teevee Time that might be better spent watching Chuck or NCIS or whatever.
So I have an alternate idea. Maybe he ought to give a "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" speech because the paranoia the Right and the MSM have spent the last decade building to a frenzy is becoming really dangerous and really really stoopid. To wit:
On Saturday, 57-year-old Jules Paul Bouloute opened an emergency exit inside the American Airlines terminal at Kennedy airport. Alarms blared and sirens flashed. Bouloute later told police that he'd opened the door by accident.
Which is what you'd assume. Sure, the exit was clearly marked, but it happens all the time, does it not? In office buildings, shopping malls, hospitals and airports, well-intended people become distracted and pass through restricted doorways. And you would think our airport security force would keep this in mind and react accordingly, and not with the assumption that every errant traveler is a terrorist poised for mass murder. To the contrary, why in the world would an attacker go around setting off alarms and drawing attention to himself?
Unfortunately, this is America 2010, and the response at JFK was neither rational nor surprising. All of Terminal 8 was evacuated for more than two hours. Police then swept through the building with dogs and SWAT teams (because, you see, a terrorist wouldn't quietly drop an explosive device into a trash barrel; he would first set off alarms, in order to...?). Before being allowed back in, thousands of travelers were forced to undergo rescreening at the Transportation Security Administration checkpoints, giving guards a chance to snag any butter knives or 4-ounce shampoo bottles they might have missed the first time. Inbound planes were stranded on the tarmac and departures were delayed for several hours.
Mind you, this was the third incident at New York airports in recent weeks in which transgressions resulted in chaos and evacuations.
Bouloute, who had just come from Haiti, of all places, was arraigned on charges of first-degree criminal tampering and third-degree criminal trespass. He faces up to seven years in prison.
We are losing all perspective if we haven't already. We're terrified by criminals with possibly exploding underwear and flame-retardant shoes. We think anybody with a beard who prays on planes (and who doesn't?) is a Mooslim Terrist and oughta be t'rown out teh emergency door like a sack of kitty litter.
In short, we have, under the tender ministrations and never-flagging pants-pissing and pearl-clutching of an easily and perpetually frightened Right, become a bunch of pansie-ass wimpoles scared of our own shadows. I was alive then and I can tell you we weren't anything like this bad during the height of the Commie Scare or even the October Missile Crisis in '62. We're acting like one of those old ladies who see "something" move outside their window and call the cops all terrified that it's a rapist only it turns out to be a tree limb moving in the wind.
It would help, maybe, if Obama devoted his speech to spine-stiffening, but I'm not sure he'd know what that is let alone how to sell it to us. Be worth a try, though, and certainly he stands a better chance of selling that than selling his failed Bush Program.
I hate airports. I thought a screener was going to bust an artery in his neck when my son kept a foil-wrapped pack of gum in his pocket rather than put it in a container (where others put their street shoes) to go through the machine... My kids aren't afraid of terrorists, they're afraid of doing "something wrong"; they're afraid of being arrested. As you know, Mick, in my view schools also spend way too much time over-reacting to the mistakes and impulses of youngsters. This Big Stick insanity is as upsetting to me as the subterranean trajectory of the economy. I hope the court Bouloute ends up in will blast back with outrage at these absurd charges. Guess we'll see...
Posted by: vwclown | January 28, 2010 at 12:20 PM