EJ Dionne on the SOTU speech

[MBS]

I like the headline on the hard-copy version of this oped a little better: "Obama: Damn the torpedoes". YES! Give it to them, President Obama!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ej-dionne-obama-ditches-his-illusions-about-republicans-in-state-of-the-union/2015/01/21/f874158e-a199-11e4-903f-9f2faf7cd9fe_story.html

“This is good news, people.” With those five words, President Obama made clear that he thinks it’s far more important to win a long-term argument with his partisan and ideological opponents than to pretend that they are eager to seize opportunities to work with him. He decided to deal with the Republican Party he has, not the Republican Party he wishes he had. Those ad-libbed words followed what ranks as one of the more polemical passages ever offered in a State of the Union address. “At every step, we were told our goals were misguided or too ambitious,” he declared, “that we would crush jobs and explode deficits. Instead, we’ve seen the fastest economic growth in over a decade, our deficits cut by two-thirds, a stock market that has doubled, and health-care inflation at its lowest rate in 50 years.” Good news, indeed, and in telling the Republicans that all their predictions turned out to be wrong, he reminded his fellow citizens which side, which policies and which president had brought the country back. . . .
. . . .

There is something odd in the notion that Obama is supposed to abandon his convictions because the Republicans won a low-turnout midterm election whose Senate races were fought mostly in territory hostile to Democrats. Ronald Reagan was never asked to stop being a conservative after Democrats took the Senate in the 1986 elections and emerged in control of both houses of Congress. Republicans praised George W. Bush for his courage in upping his commitment in Iraq through the troop surge, even though the Democratic sweep of 2006 was in large part a repudiation of the war on which he doubled down. Are only progressive presidents expected to trim their sails?

There seemed to be a disconnect between Obama’s combative opening and his close defending his signature refrain that “there wasn’t a liberal America, or a conservative America.” He acknowledged that many saw it as “ironic” that “our politics seems more divided than ever.” But notice that he used this passage to suggest how the American debate had to change. . . .Obama clearly still believes that the country is less divided than our politics allows us to be. But he is no longer drawn to the illusion that his adversaries in the other party will beat their swords into plowshares anytime soon. He is battling not just for a personal legacy but also on behalf of a perspective that he hopes the country will someday embrace.

[Paka]

1. K&R

Thanks for the post.

[MBS]

2. you're welcome. : ) n/t

[mountain grammy]

3. K&R This says it all:

"He is battling not just for a personal legacy but also on behalf of a perspective that he hopes the country will someday embrace."

Good article, thanks for posting.

[bvf]

4. I really like E.J. Dionne.

Especially like his observation contrasting the public's expectation of so-called lame ducks depending on party affiliation.

No doubt who's driving the message.

[BumRushDaShow]

5. I like his creative writing

Not just sound bite filler descriptiveness but very visual and thematic (old-school)!

[Cha]

6. He gets it.. unlike so many doom and gloomers.

[MBS]

7. yes, exactly.

good style and broad, transcending-the-daily-cable-news-hysteria perspective.

[Cha]

8. KICK!