Sunday, January 31, 2010

Amateur Hour on Display @ Seattle City Hall: "Sweeping City Layoffs on 'Pause'"

Josh Feit (publicola):
Mayor Mike McGinn sent out an email (and video message) to city employees today asking city department heads to “pause” on the sweeping mandate he announced when he took office earlier this month to layoff 200 senior-level positions.

McGinn’s spokesman Mark Matassa confirms that the mayor is adjusting the process, noting “the high degree of concern and low morale” the original sweeping mandate caused among city staffers.

Matassa says Mayor McGinn “still believes” there was huge growth in upper level positions during the Nickels years and there need to be cuts.

(When McGinn first made the announcement on January 4, he pointed out that the city had 639 senior level employees eight years ago, but the number had grown to 951 today, an increase of 49 percent—while the overall city workforce increased only 2 percent during the same time period.)

However, rather than going ahead with layoffs now, McGinn wants the departments to use the process of identifying the staffing cuts and merge those details into the larger mid-year budget process—reevaluating what needs to be cut in the larger context of the department’s work.

Matassa adds that the $40 million budget shortfall may get worse with preliminary predictions puttig the hole at $50 million.

Another reason to adjust the sweeping staff cuts, Matassa explained, is that “bumping rights” (that is, who got promoted when and into what position) blurs the lines between actual people and positions.

“Its not so simple,” Matassa said, to just yank 200 positions, “when you get into the nitty gritty. There are unintended consequences.”

Here’s the key part of McGinn’s email:

I have asked department directors to pause work on phase II of the senior-level position review exercise. As originally designed, in this phase departments were to develop position reduction proposals to meet their assigned target levels. Knowing that we will have to re-tool our operations in the face of upcoming budget reductions, I have now asked departments to integrate plans to reduce the number of senior-level positions into larger exercises around meeting potential mid-year reductions and in developing the 2011 budget. This will also allow us time to review senior-level positions in the context of Council’s span of control Statement of Legislative Intent (SLI), which is due to the Council on June 30, 2010. This will allow for a more deliberative review of our staffing levels in the context of changes that will be necessary in the face of our serious financial challenges.

The full email is below the jump.It includes a link to the video address that Mayor McGinn also sent to city employees where he says he is “recalibrating” the senior level cuts.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

"Can Obama Woo Back the Grassroots?" (with audio)

KCRW, "To The Point" with audio (27:00):
Can Obama Woo Back the Grassroots? (seven minutes in, after the news and introduction))

The big story of the 2008 presidential campaign was the massive, grassroots army of some 13 million volunteers that Barack Obama recruited with the promise of change. The big question of 2009 was how those political soldiers could help accomplish the goals they fought for. Now, more and more of those supporters say they're being left out of the action by a White House that's all too comfortable with Wall Street and Washington's ways. Did Obama raise unrealistic expectations? Has he missed the opportunity to build a movement, or is governing just different from running a campaign? We hear from grassroots supporters, both current and former. Guests:

H/t to Ari Melber.

Howie P.S.:
John Aravosis says "Krugman and Ezra have apparently had it with Obama on health care reform." More disappointment from Frank Rich: "The State of the Union Is Comatose."

Friday, January 29, 2010

Obama @ the House GOP Retreat (with video/transcript)

MSNBC, video (66:42), with complete transcript.

Obama's "failure to connect emotionally" (video)

MSNBC-Morning Jokesters, video (07:26).

Howie P.S.: Doris Kearns Goodwin and Eugene Robinson make watching this bearable.

Think Progress: "Axelrod Struggles To Explain Why Obama’s Spending Freeze Doesn’t Include Defense Funding"

Faiz Shakir (Think Progress):
Yesterday, ThinkProgress joined a handful of journalists for a wide-ranging discussion with David Axelrod, Senior Adviser to President Obama. In his State of the Union address on Wednesday night, Obama announced a discretionary spending freeze that excluded the massive budgets of the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security.
“Can you tell the American people that there aren’t any savings to be found in the Defense and Homeland Security budgets?” ThinkProgress asked Axelrod. The President’s Senior Adviser acknowledged, no, “I can’t tell you that” there aren’t savings which can be found there.

Axelrod highlighted prior efforts by the administration to rein in defense spending and insisted that further cuts could still be made. Yet the Pentagon budget — which is expected to exceed $700 billion when Obama unveils his budget on Feb. 1st — remains inexplicably exempt from the spending freeze.

“We live in a dangerous world,” Axelrod said in trying to justify the special exclusion for the defense budget. “What we can’t do at a time when we’re in two wars and we have a very determined enemy in Al Qaeda, we can’t stand down,” he added in an interview with Fox News. Yet, rather than carve out an exclusion to fund troops in the field, the administration opted for a more expansive exclusion. And while cuts might indeed be made to certain programs, the overall Pentagon budget will be allowed to increase without having to face the difficult tradeoffs that other departments will.

Asked whether politics played any part in the decision to carve out a special exclusion for national security-related budgets, Axelrod denied that it did. “There weren’t any meetings that I was in where that was talked about,” he told us.

As Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Lawrence Korb has argued, “If President Obama is serious about controlling spending, he can’t exempt the Pentagon.” And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) concurs, telling reporters yesterday that the entire defense budget “should not be exempted” from the freeze.

Update TPM’s Christina Bellantoni, The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, and OpenLeft’s Chris Bowers reported on the meeting as well.
Update Paul Krugman opines on the motives behind the spending freeze. “Mr. Obama’s advisers believed he could score some political points by doing the deficit-peacock strut,” he writes. “I think they were wrong, that he did himself more harm than good.”

Two more on the SOTU

"Nice Speech. Now What?" (Bill Boyarsky):
If words alone could do the trick, President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech worked. But this time, words were not enough.
Words won’t put people to work. Not even Obama’s eloquence—and he did reach that point on occasion—will be enough to inject courage into the gutless Democrats running from a mild heath care reform bill. Nor will words turn Republicans away from the unrelenting opposition they think will bring down the Democrats.

I watched the speech at the Candlelight, a bar taken over by the Santa Monica Democratic Club. The members’ reaction was a sampling of the party base—the voters Obama must rally to prevent electoral disaster.

At first they looked tense, no doubt shaken by his bad week. “I hope he inspires us,” said Jay Johnson. By the end of the speech, though, they were applauding frequently and looked almost ready to stream out of the Candlelight and convert some Republicans and independents—if they could find any in the solidly Democratic Southern California beachfront city of Santa Monica.

They cheered bank reform. They shouted “No!” when he said he wanted more nuclear power plants and “No, No!” after he talked of offshore oil drilling. Good applause for the climate bill. Big applause for repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Same with his pledge on health reform: “I will not walk away from these Americans, and neither should the people in this chamber.”

To mobilize the base, Obama will have to put America back to work. It will take much more than this speech to make it happen.

He gave too much credit to his stimulus plan, passed early last year and expected to create many jobs by now. He said, “… there are about 2 million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed. ... And we are on track to add another one and a half million jobs to this total by the end of the year.”

This has not stopped unemployment from rising. The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that unemployment increased last month in 43 states and the District of Columbia. It reached 11.8 percent in Florida, where Obama flew Wednesday to promote his jobs program. In California, it is 12.4 percent, causing Democrats to begin to worry about losing the gubernatorial election and the Senate seat held by Barbara Boxer.

The difficulty of converting the president’s words into action is shown by a study of the $18.5 billion allocated to California as its share of Obama’s $787 billion stimulus bill. California Watch, an investigative reporting project of the Center for Investigative Journalism, did the study.

More than 62,000 public education jobs—from college instructors to public school bus drivers—were saved by the injection of the stimulus funds. At the University of California alone, 8,356 jobs were saved, including 1,341 in academia. But this hasn’t stopped UC from imposing higher fees that will block many students from its campuses.

And the real job creation must come from manufacturing and construction companies, speedily receiving government contracts for tasks that will require large number of workers making and building things. This is how the economy began to revive during the Great Depression, when the unemployed went to work for construction companies on the great public works of the era. And it has to happen fast. The sight of people working on stimulus-financed jobs will hearten the country, just as happened in FDR’s day.
Obama’s program is taking too long, is too slow and is not creating enough work. A $285 million grant for wastewater facilities will produce just 285 jobs. A company building solar panels will receive a total of $535 million and create 118 jobs. Boeing is receiving a $15.9 million stimulus contract for environmental monitoring at a Southern California area where it was fined for polluting a creek with chromium, dioxin, lead and mercury, California Watch discovered. Eleven jobs will be created to clean up the mess Boeing made. It’s a good deal for the company but not the country.

More than $325 million is going to something called the California Tax Credit Committee. This money will be used for loans to developers to build low-income housing. No money has been spent, and the grant award document says there is no estimate of jobs to be created. None of this will happen until the developers get more financing and navigate a state and local government regulatory maze. The Obama administration is giving $226 million to the California State Energy Program to develop programs for green jobs, energy-efficient retrofitting and “program implementation and delivery.” Total jobs? One—a “staff program analyst specialist.”

It’s enough to deaden the enthusiasm of supportive activists like those at the Candlelight on Tuesday night. They are ready to work for Obama and to save Barbara Boxer’s Senate seat. The attitude is similar among Democrats in coming elections across the country.

But as I talked to members of the crowd at the bar afterward, one of them, Obama admirer Mikal Kamil, summed up the difficult situation facing the Democrats: “You can’t tell success by a speech. You have to see the performance.”
"In State of the Union address, President Obama put himself on the outside looking in" (Eugene Robinson-WaPo):
President Obama's State of the Union address didn't signal a political shift to the left or the right. It sounded more like a shrewd attempt to move from the inside to the outside -- to position himself alongside disaffected voters, peering through the windows of the den of iniquity called Washington and reacting with dismay at the depravity within.
In the course of a 70-minute speech, Obama slammed almost everybody in town. He even included a little self-deprecation and self-doubt -- "I know there are many Americans who aren't sure if they still believe we can change -- or that I can deliver it." But that followed a lengthy indictment of how Washington works, or doesn't work. It is a tribute to Obama's rhetorical gifts that the man at the center of our political system could position himself as an exasperated but hopeful outsider.

Unsurprisingly, the president called out the Republicans for being consistently obstructionist: "If the Republican leadership is going to insist that 60 votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town . . . then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it's not leadership."

But he also called out the Democrats: "I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills."

He called out both parties at once, in a passage that was about reducing the deficit but could have applied to health care or just about any other issue: "Rather than fight the same tired battles that have dominated Washington for decades, it's time to try something new. Let's invest in our people without leaving them a mountain of debt. Let's meet our responsibility to the citizens who sent us here. Let's try common sense. A novel concept."

He called out the media: "The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates to silly arguments, and big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away." Hmmm, who on Earth would do such a thing?

He even called out the Supreme Court, with six black-robed justices in attendance, for its recent ruling on campaign finance: "With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign corporations -- to spend without limit in our elections." With all due respect: some deference. Justice Samuel Alito should have been able to restrain himself from mouthing what appeared to be "Not true, not true," but he probably hadn't expected to find himself in a free-fire zone.

All of this excoriation, it looks to me, serves a political purpose. One obvious lesson from last summer's town-hall shoutfests, the rise of the Tea Party movement and the victory of pickup-truck-driving Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special election is that many voters are deeply alienated from Washington. Another lesson, especially from Brown's Senate win, is that the legions who were so enthralled by Obama's candidacy that they elected Democrats across the country are now unmotivated and perhaps disenchanted.

But polls show that Obama remains personally popular -- and that voters hold him less responsible for government dysfunction than either Republicans or Democrats in Congress. In Wednesday's speech, Obama used his campaign theme of "change" not just to reignite the fervor of disappointed supporters but also to speak to angry critics for whom "Washington" is an epithet not uttered in polite company.

No, he won't be able to appease the hard-core Tea Party crowd. But independent voters who are fed up with partisan gridlock heard the president invite Republicans to offer their ideas on health care, energy, education and other issues. I believe he may have succeeded at making it more difficult for Republicans to keep giving "no" as their all-purpose answer to anything the administration proposes. The president sounded reasonable and open; the opposition risks sounding truculent and Machiavellian.

Obama was at his most popular when he was seen as a different kind of politician, one who would speak harsh truths to friends as well as adversaries, one who offered not cynical calculation but unapologetic hope.

In his State of the Union speech, he sought once again to sound the themes -- and inhabit the persona -- of his remarkable campaign. He's been president for a year, but he sounded like an outsider again.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

"Thursday Morning Quarterbacking" (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Here’s a roundup of analysis on President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address.
Clive Crook, the Atlantic: “Little sign of a reset that I could see. The speech emphasized jobs and the economy over healthcare reform, but that would have made sense even if the political landscape had not shifted. As for the poll numbers, as for Massachusetts, they might never have happened. He mentioned Scott Brown’s victory only obliquely, and in way that denied it any significance…He conveyed almost no sense that the country was sending him a message and that he was paying attention. He shuffled priorities-but goals and methods had not changed. The tone was uncompromising and often combative. ‘We don’t quit. I don’t quit.’ If you admire tenacity, there was a lot to like.”

Fred Barnes, the Weekly Standard: “Haven’t we heard that speech before, practically every word of it? Maybe it was a year ago when President Obama first addressed Congress. Maybe it was during the campaign. Maybe it was at one of those town halls? Maybe Obama can’t help himself. His speeches just insist on sounding the same. In any case, Obama delivered the least fresh State of the Union address I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard more than 30 of them. It was filled with old ideas, campaign cliches, and frequent use of personal pronoun, ‘I.’ That’s the Obama pattern.”

Brian Darling, RedState.com: “The President, when not blaming the Bush Administration for his problems, merely thinks that the American people are not listening to him. This is good news for conservatives, because the President’s speech last night shows that he will take no action to right the ship before Congressional elections this November and he seems incapable of a nuanced approach to politics that includes a mix of conservative and liberal approaches to problem solving. The President is like the Captain of the Titanic in April of 1912 steaming past huge icebergs in the hope that his ship of state somehow makes it until the end of the year without a catastrophic collision.”

Melissa Harris-Lacewell, the Nation: “A contemporary State of the Union address is less an assessment of our national circumstances than it is a collective Rorschach test: an inkblot given meaning by the viewer more than by the subject. The televised pageantry of applause and ovations has little to do with the President’s articulation of a policy agenda and far more to do with how his partisan allies and opponents read the electoral viability of his phrases.”

Michael Scherer, Time: “So it went all night for the President, who a year ago came before the same body to announce, ‘Now is the time to act boldly and wisely.’ That bold wisdom has, in the course of a year, been transformed into a much more qualified vision of something short of significant legislative failure. ‘To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills,’ he said.”

Howard Fineman, Newsweek: “If one speech can replenish a presidency—and I’m not sure it can—Barack Obama’s State of the Union address was just such a speech. In tone and content it was aimed squarely at the fickle voters he has lost since last year: the swing-voting independents in the middle of the spectrum…As a piece of politics, it was nothing short of masterful.”

John Dickerson, Slate: “It was appropriate that the iPad was unveiled the same day President Obama gave his first State of the Union speech. Both were centered on Jobs, and both sought to give people something useful they could put their hands on…The State of the Union speech was intended, at least in part, to remind voters that the president is the same guy they elected 14 months ago. It’s another similarity the speech shares with the iPad: They were seen as possibly reviving troubled enterprises (the publishing industry and the Obama brand). The president’s speech was another of his good ones. But like the iPad and publishing, it’s not clear how much the good packaging really will help the venture.”

Joan Walsh, Salon: “It was a good speech. It was better and tougher than I expected (I didn’t expect him to tweak the GOP for playing “Just say no,” for instance). But I’ve swooned over Obama’s speeches before. The man can do speeches. He needs to follow this one up with tough action to make his agenda reality before it will really be more than just words to me.”

David Corn, Mother Jones: “Here was an opportunity for Obama to show himself a fighter, by confronting GOPers and the insurance lobbyists more forcefully, depicting the health care debate as a face-off with two sides, and encouraging Americans to enter the fray, presumably on his side. Yet he made no explicit pitch for citizen pressure on Congress. (What about the Obama Nation army of 13 million people? He wasn’t talking to them.)”

Mark McKinnon, Daily Beast: “The reality is that the speech he gave tonight in terms of his agenda hasn’t changed much from speeches he was giving a year ago…The speech was good, but not a game-changer. I think a week from now, the picture of this presidency will look largely the same.”

Yuval Levin, National Review: “The president gave a campaign speech tonight, but the Democrats had better hope that this is not what their campaign speeches are like this year. It was amazingly disconnected from the moment — treating and describing the public as downtrodden, depressed, but resilient, when the public mood seems more like fed up

Naomi Klein on SOTU (Demcracy Now!) (with audio/video)

Naomi Klein, via Democracy Now! with audio/video (13:07):
AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein, right now—well, you just flew into Park City, Utah just before President Obama’s State of the Union address. Your reaction to it?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, I mean, we knew the spending freeze was going to come, but to me, it’s really striking. I think what this moment represents is the decision, which we all feared would come, to pass the bill on from saving Wall Street, from saving the elites of this country from their own mess, a bill worth trillions of dollars, to regular people in need in this country. I mean, that’s what a spending freeze really means.

And we have to look at it in the context of the debt crisis that is occurring at the state level. There’s deficit—huge deficits being run up. California is the most dramatic example, but you’re already seeing how students are facing things like 30 percent tuition increases. Women’s shelters are being closed. So, you know, when the President says freeze spending, that’s saying to the states, “We’re not going to help you. We’re not going to bail you out.”

So this is really—this, to me, all comes back to the top-down bailout that should never have taken place in the first place, the decision that was made to throw the taxpayer dollars at the banks, at the elites, no strings attached, not to help the people losing their jobs, losing their homes. And now the bill is being passed on, because the debt crisis, the private-sector debt crisis, which started this, the banks racking up these huge debts, was never solved. It was just moved. It was just moved to the public coffers.

And now Obama is—this is a Hoover move. This is a Herbert Hoover move. And I think we have to say very clearly, he is not FDR. And, you know, in the spirit of Howard Zinn, who passed yesterday, I keep thinking, you know, what would he say about the State of the Union? And I think he would tell us to refuse to pay this bill, that we need a debtors’ revolt.

More SOTU Reaction


"SOTU as National Rorschach Test" (Melissa Harris-Lacewell-The Nation):
A contemporary State of the Union address is less an assessment of our national circumstances than it is a collective Rorschach test: an inkblot given meaning by the viewer more than by the subject. The televised pageantry of applause and ovations has little to do with the President's articulation of a policy agenda and far more to do with how his partisan allies and opponents read the electoral viability of his phrases.
President Obama's address on Wednesday night felt like a heightened version of this classic psychological evaluation. Reactions to it will tell us less about the President and more about the country and our willingness to embrace and tackle the difficulties that we face.

Obama loyalists saw a return of their favorite version of the President: relaxed, persuasive, rhetorically tough and clear. They cheered about student loan debt forgiveness and joined the President's demand to pass a flawed but sweeping health care reform bill.

Cringing Leftists were disappointed by his deficit hawkishness, unconvinced by his promises to leave Iraq by the end of summer, and irritated by the brevity of his argument for repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell.

The GOP silence was deafening as Republicans refused to applaud tax reductions, small business investment, and budget balancing. No matter what Obama said, their inkblot test read "socialist."

In the night's weirdest Rorschach display, MSNBC host Chris Matthews declared that the speech made him forget the President was black for an hour. Revealing, of course, that race wasn't distant from Matthews' mind, but rather that it was central to his assessment of the President

The entire first year of the Obama presidency has been defined by a kind of national psychological angst. I have argued political opponents should not describe one another as "crazy," but it can be useful to think about how our collective psychological responses influence our politics. Barack Obama framed his candidacy in psychological terms, asking voters to reject fear and embrace hope. His campaign urged voters to project onto his candidacy their dreams for a more prosperous, peaceful and unified nation.

Last week's assessments of President Obama's first year in office reflected the deterioration of these hopeful projections to anxious ones. Observers on the Right insisted on seeing a free-market, centrist as a radical socialist. Commentators on the Left refused to notice the structural barriers limiting the President, and instead decried his lack of toughness and progressive commitment.

Both sides were laboring with the fundamental attribution error that causes people to overemphasize individual factors when explaining the behaviors and outcomes of others. Both sides rarely acknowledged the nearly determinate situational factors the President inherited: two ill-advised wars, a spiraling recession, a pre-existing bailout, an obstructionist opposition party, an ideologically fragmented Democratic majority, and a country with a constantly percolating racial anxiety. It was easier to blame the disposition, choices and preferences of Barack Obama than to admit to the messy difficulties of governing a complex, diverse nation that still labors with 18th century political institutions and 19th century socioeconomic predispositions.

In Wednesday's State of the Union, President Obama attempted to break through this psychological angst with a speech meant to remind Americans of the situational constraints he faces; to shift the emotional tenor from despair back to optimism; and to ask voters and Congressional members to use common sense and rational approaches to policy making.

President Obama reminded Americans that the spectacular economic crisis began under the previous administration, not with him.

At the beginning of the last decade, America had a budget surplus of over $200 billion. By the time I took office, we had a one year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program. On top of that, the effects of the recession put a $3 trillion hole in our budget. That was before I walked in the door.

As he has done exquisitely since the campaign, the President then contextualized these difficulties within a broader historical sweep. The American story, Obama continues to insist, is replete with examples of gritty determination overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

It's tempting to look back on these moments and assume that our progress was inevitable – that America was always destined to succeed. But when the Union was turned back at Bull Run and the Allies first landed at Omaha Beach, victory was very much in doubt. When the market crashed on Black Tuesday and civil rights marchers were beaten on Bloody Sunday, the future was anything but certain. These were times that tested the courage of our convictions, and the strength of our union. And despite all our divisions and disagreements; our hesitations and our fears; America prevailed because we chose to move forward as one nation, and one people.

But in this speech, President Obama refused to simply shift responsibility or to rely exclusively on faith in American progress; he also took on the role of civics professor. He explained how the recent Supreme Court decision threatens American politics. He provided a brief lesson in budgeting. And he explained the dangers of governing with short-term responsiveness to volatile public opinion rather than long-term commitment to collective responsibility.

We cannot wage a perpetual campaign where the only goal is to see who can get the most embarrassing headlines about their opponent – a belief that if you lose, I win. Neither party should delay or obstruct every single bill just because they can. The confirmation of well-qualified public servants should not be held hostage to the pet projects or grudges of a few individual Senators. Washington may think that saying anything about the other side, no matter how false, is just part of the game. But it is precisely such politics that has stopped either party from helping the American people. Worse yet, it is sowing further division among our citizens and further distrust in our government.

This address seemed to disrupt predictable responses. Oddly, as President Obama built to a black church-like crescendo in the last few paragraphs, the Congressional chamber fell eerily silent. It was as though everyone was holding their breath and collectively readjusting the lens through which they viewed this President.

Like tilting your head to view the inkblot from a different angle can suddenly make a new image appear, really listening to the President last night can make the country's future seem much different than it did before. Whether the new vision is reassuring or frightening is largely our own projection.
"I Never Suggested the Change Would Be Easy" (John Nichols):
Say what you will about Barack Obama.

But don't accuse the president of veering from the course he charted at a point when his term was new, his popularity ratings were high and Americans took seriously all that talk of "hope" and "change."

Despite the battering he has taken during his first year in the White House, despite suffering a serious drop in his personal approval ratings, despite the frustration and disenchantment that gave the Senate seat from the deep blue state of Massachusetts to the opposition Republicans, Obama used his initial State of the Union address to renew the call for the health care reform initiative that was the primary focus of his difficult first year in office.

"Don't walk away from reform -- not now, not when we are so close," the president pleaded with the Congress.

"By the time I'm finished speaking tonight, more Americans will have lost their health insurance. Millions will lose it this year. Our deficit will grow. Premiums will go up. Co-pays will go up. Patients will be denied the care they need. Small business owners will continue to drop coverage altogether," he declared, in the signature line of his speech. "I will not walk away from these Americans. And neither should the people in this chamber."

The president admitted that he bumbled the push for health reform, even drawing warm laughter when he said: "I did not choose to tackle this issue to get some legislative victory under my belt. And by now it should be fairly obvious that I didn't take on health care because it was good politics. But remember this - I never suggested that change would be easy, or that I can do it alone."

He also acknowledged that his first year in office was a tough one: "I campaigned on the promise of change - change we can believe in, the slogan went. And right now, I know there are many Americans who aren't sure if they still believe we can change - or at least, that I can deliver it."

Yet, Obama still did not seem to "get" the politics of the moment.

Speaking at a point when the year-long effort to enact fundamental health-care reforms has stumbled badly -- in the face of united Republican opposition, wrangling between House and Senate Democrats and unfocused messaging from the president -- Obama made a renewed effort to find the common ground that has eluded almost everyone in Washington.

Remarkably, the president clung to the hope for bipartisanship that was dashed at every turn in 2009 -- either with outright rejection by the "party of 'no'" or, worse yet, via compromises that handed ultimate authority over policy-making to Republican senators who diverted stimulus funding from job creation to tax cuts for the rich and Democrat-In-Name-Only Ben Nelson and Republican-In-Everything-But-Name Joe Lieberman, who forced the Senate to scrap the public option that was needed to challenge the grip of health insurance companies.

"We face big and difficult challenges. And what the American people hope what they deserve -- is for all of us, Democrats and Republicans, to work through our differences; to overcome the numbing weight of our politics," said the president, whose repeated references to bipartisanship made clear that he is not ready to adopt the fighting stance that might rally the Democratic base for a serious fight to use the party's majorities in the House and Senate to initiate meaningful reforms.

This was not a rally-the-base speech.

It was a speech that, at many turns, sounded as if it was written a year ago -- before Obama saw his domestic agenda blocked at so many turns.

It was this tone-deaf quality that made Obama's speech a less-than-inspired statement.

Even when Obama outlined what sounded like an activist agenda, he generally restated 2008 campaign promises that were not kept during his first year as president.

In particular:

* To suggest a commitment to job creation, he dusted off one of his presidential campaign's less-impressive position papers on using tax cuts to get small businesses hiring. In particular, the president called for eliminating capital-gains taxes on investments in small businesses and for giving small employers a tax credit for new hires.

* He repeated old promises to create clean-energy jobs and to end aid to businesses that are off-shoring jobs and facilities.

* Even as he said "we all hated the bank bailout" ("it's about as popular as a root canal"), Obama defended the giveaway to big banks as a necessary, even courageous, move. And he only offered up a little of the populism that should have defined the speech, with a proposal to recover bailout bucks by placing a fee on the biggest banks. "I know Wall Street isn't keen on this idea," he declared, "but if these firms can afford to hand out big bonuses again, they can afford a modest fee to pay back the taxpayers who rescued them in their time of need."

* He announced, "It's time to get serious about financial reform." But the details were missing.

* He called for the repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which discriminates against openly gay and lesbian people who want to serve in the military by requiring their discharge if they tell fellow service members about their sexuality. But he still left the issue to Congress, eschewing calls for him to act as commander-in-chief and simply issue an executive order.

Obama seemed throughout the speech to be struggling to balance an understanding of the need for activist government -- especially in the struggle to reduce a brutal double-digit unemployment rate -- with a political calculation that he must mouth empty rhetoric about cutting taxes, capping spending and fretting about deficits. (Obama made his call for a freeze on domestic spending but drew giggles from all sides when he said it would not be implemented until next year.)

The result was an address that, at too many turns, seemed either tepid or numbingly predictable -- and that at other turns was just plain wrong ("we need a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants.") The president still hasn't figured out that bragging about the success of last year's stimulus bill cannot trump the fact that unemployment is two percentage points higher than was promised at the time the measure was enacted. He doesn't seem to recognize that his own party has abandoned the cap-and-trade initiatives he mentioned ever so briefly Wednesday night. And his "I'm for free trade, er, no, I'm for fair trade, er, no, free trade, er, no fair trade" line was so deliberately vapid as to be insulting.

So it was that the highlight of the speech was not the renewed call for health-care reform or the new talk of economic renewal.

It was his cry for real reform of our politics, even in the face of the Supreme Court's decision, in the case of Citizens United v. FEC, to let corporations buy elections.

"(It's) time to put strict limits on the contributions that lobbyists give to candidates for federal office. Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests –- including foreign companies –- to spend without limit in our elections," Obama told the Congress. "Well I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, and worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that's why I'm urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong."

The president's message on campaign reform was right.

But it should have been more muscular, more central to the overall statement.

The president should have made the Supreme Court's lawless decision the focus of his speech -- as part of a broader riff on what's wrong with Washington. But he didn't go for it.

And that's the bottom line. In his first State of the Union address, the president should have gone for it. But he pulled a few too many punches, sounded a little too many old themes and fell a little too short of the mark.

This was not a bad speech. Obama can't really give a bad speech.

But nor was it a game-changing address. Rather, it was the statement of a man who is not quite ready to abandon the goals or the preconceived notions with which he began his presidency. If consistency is a virtue, then this was a virtuous speech. But if consistency has its risks, especially in the face of changing circumstances, then this was a very risky speech.

Instead of rallying the base, President Obama chose to preach the gospel of bipartisanship. Instead of offering America a bold new agenda, or at least an edgier style, the president chose to recall old themes. Instead of accepting that the approaches of 2009 did not work, the president signaled that they will be repeated in 2010.

SOTU Reaction from "a very experienced psychiatric nurse"

From my friend Rachel Smith Manrique, who knows the author:
First, the likes:
1. He has access to himself, drawing from a wealth of personal discipline and experience, both failure and hardship. He spoke to me directly from that place of utmost integrity, particularly towards the end of the speech.
2. He has a very likable approach, he's gentle at the core of his being, humble. One can tell that he is fully conscious of the consequences of his decisions.
3. I feel that he addressed the trust deficit issue quite well.
4. Kudos for addressing the supreme court (kangaroos) and asking for election reform.

Dislikes:
1. Too much on the agenda, unclear how things will get done with such a divided country, and with the deficit
2. Could have addressed his own personality, making himself more vulnerable to 'the enemy' the GOP, while asking 'them' with all of their emotions severed for a plan as to how we can more effectively communicate, thus get something done. It is their responsibility to do that. He also might have addressed the leading sophists....explaining how much damage is done by them...how they don't have to be accountable for their vitriolic spiels. I think a bit more of assertive talk would have made a good start towards healing the divisiveness plaguing this country.

Howard Dean: "So, what'd you think of the State of the Union?" (Facebook)

Howard Dean

Howard Dean So, what'd you think of the State of the Union?

41 minutes ago · · · Share · Report
50 of 71
Maura Keaney
Maura Keaney
I'm with Melissa McEwan: Meh. She said: "Obama still doesn't seem to have realized that you can't simultaneously pander to your opponent and rally your troops. He missed a big rallying opportunity last night."
36 minutes ago · Report
Beverly Marcus
Beverly Marcus
It's all about the follow-up and action ... speech OK.
36 minutes ago · Report
Rick Desrochers
Rick Desrochers
It is time to act on what he was talking about last night.
35 minutes ago · Report
Julie Britt
Julie Britt
I still heart Obama.
35 minutes ago · Report
Ranit Sengupta
Ranit Sengupta
You should be president Howard Dean.

ps: His speeches are never a problem. His idealistic philosophy is. He really needs to take a firm stance against the republican hubris.
35 minutes ago · Report
Paul Boxer
Paul Boxer
that Howard Dean should be president.
35 minutes ago · Report
Jef Peters
Jef Peters
Restored my faith a bit, but so sick of the Senate I could PUKE!!!
Maybe we should just let the House & the President run the country until the Senate can get it's crap together!!!
34 minutes ago · Report
Peter Searle
Peter Searle
Excellent speech! Very STRONG !!!
34 minutes ago · Report
Eva Klaess Barnett
Eva Klaess Barnett
I agree with the President that the people are far more united and united in being fed up and hopeful (all at the same time!) than our government is. It seemed like he issued a terse grow the f--- up to Congress. I think that's what the people wanted him to say. Specifics weren't as important as tone, but I'm disappointed with the 30 bn for small ... See Morebanks, but I don't know that the small banks would want to take on too much more than that anyway, but I could be wrong.

More can be done as the Move Your Money movement grows. I hope.
33 minutes ago · Report
Adrian DeVore
Adrian DeVore
Excellent speech!
33 minutes ago · Report
Marjorie Dybec
Marjorie Dybec
Disappointed it took him this long to speak clearly and plainly to the American People. Had he given this speech before pandering on Healthcare the constituents would have forced their congressmen to pass it. But still very proud he is our smart, passionate, visionary President. Let's see what he can deliver.
33 minutes ago · Report
C.j. Hatter
C.j. Hatter
Too little, too late. Too much "You should. . ." and "Congress must. . ." Not enough "I'm doing. . ." or "I will. . ."

I fear the GOP will assume a sweeping majority in both houses this November, and all will be lost. Patience, my @$$.
32 minutes ago · Report
Matthew Cox
Matthew Cox
It all SOUNDS great. I just no longer believe he plans to do any of it.
32 minutes ago · Report
Samet Osmanlı
Samet Osmanlı
Judy, exactly!
Great idea, HR 676
32 minutes ago · Report
Mike Carlucci
Mike Carlucci
too many republican idea. he blamed them for some problems, but this is basically mitt romney's agenda now. cut the military in half (at least) and end the wars. they are killing the country.
32 minutes ago · Report
Eugene Shlyakhta
Eugene Shlyakhta
Obama needs to stop talking and start doing.
31 minutes ago · Report
Helen Nicholas Cook
Helen Nicholas Cook
I had the feeling of "yes we can" again. Great speech. I have had faith in Obama , this just restored it, and it is now stronger than before .
31 minutes ago · Report
Nazeer Ali
Nazeer Ali
I thought the speech was excellent and I like his sometimes colloquial style. He needs to expose the Republicans as the roadblockers they are.
31 minutes ago · Report
Bob Sampron
Bob Sampron
I think it's as close to a mea culpa as we will get from this president.

The words were pretty, acknowledging the peoples' frustration. However, my moderate friends still came away frustrated.

Now; Obama must match his words with actions. If he needs our help, as he said he did (campaigned on hope, but cannot do it alone), tell us how we may help. Focus your followers on specific efforts.... See More

Still, this health care bill is garbage. It's like solving homelessness by ordering the homeless to buy or rent or be fined. If we heard those same words from the President, we'd be shouting loudly at him. So, why is this approach acceptable for health care?
31 minutes ago · Report
Kamil Barbour
Kamil Barbour
not too convinced we will see any significant change. More of the same Republican policies.
30 minutes ago · Report
Jones Murphy
Jones Murphy
I loved the shots of Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman sitting together.
30 minutes ago · Report
Joe Wojak
Joe Wojak
Have to confess, I didn't watch it. : (
29 minutes ago · Report
Kathy Lloyd Fuller
Kathy Lloyd Fuller
I thought it was great and I especially like him calling out the SCOTUS in front of everyone!
29 minutes ago · Report
Jim Groetsch
Jim Groetsch
I thought it was junk. Dr. Dean, your name will be written on my ballot whether you run or not. You seem to be the only democrat with a clue about what average Americans are going through. Forcing people to buy unaffordable medical insurance "across state lines" is not a solution. Insurance monopolies need some real competition.
28 minutes ago · Report
Wendy Rosner
Wendy Rosner
it was way better than expected. i thought it was too centrist and i am opposed to some of his proposals (nukes, clean coal) but he even made me hope for some bipartisanship. the Rs were beyond contempt as were the military leaders who looked like they were wondering why they had to listen to that boy up there. it's very sad to watch obama take the high road when his enemies (and they are his enemies) want to drag us further into the muck just to see him fail. they truly do hate america.
28 minutes ago · Report
MaryAlice Spurgeon
MaryAlice Spurgeon
He has to have the backbone to do the right thing. It's all well and good to want to bring us together but it's time to make things happen in spite of the fool Republicans. As was said before - he can certainly talk the talk but now he MUST walk the walk.
26 minutes ago · Report
Helina Morgan Josephson
Helina Morgan Josephson
I loved the tone and energy. However, I was deeply disappointed at his minimal and lackluster mention of health care reform. Why didn't he come out and direct congress to pass it? Why didn't he say, flat-out, that the people want and need health care reform, that it is unconscionable to continue on without it, and that the dems blew an entire year ... See Moreof having a supermajority? I am disgusted that the GOP happily steamrollered whatever they wanted for so long but the dems for some reason seem to think it would be political suicide to get anything done. Howard, wish you were president or HHS secretary.
26 minutes ago · Report
Christian Elberfeld
Christian Elberfeld
Too Reaganesque for me...If I had a nickel for every "tax credit"
23 minutes ago · Report
Margaret Weigel
Margaret Weigel
where's the switchgrass? going to mars?
howard dean, i miss you.
21 minutes ago · Report
Kris Best
Kris Best
I am so Proud of this man-as my President-Just also heard from my F.B. riends in Europe....they also commented how they appreciate that he is leading the U.S.
21 minutes ago · Report
Jake Allport
Jake Allport
It is my firm opinion that Obama should become the Press Secretary and handle the PR aspect of governing, and Joe Biden can handle the dirty work of policy making. I think it makes sense.
20 minutes ago · Report
Foto Athanasiadis
Foto Athanasiadis
Veto a Health Bill with Mandate ! and it most have a Public Option thats what i wanted to hear !!!!!
also hugging Geithner was shamefull.
19 minutes ago · Report
Rose Allaire
Rose Allaire
He delivers a brilliant speech; inspirational and very positive. However it's his actions that have concerned me. He told us lots of things during his campaign that feels like false promises; but I will not give up on him!
I will not quit...
17 minutes ago · Report
Naomi Winch
Naomi Winch
I liked what I heard minus the drilling for oil. Let's see some action though, I'm so tired by all this talk
15 minutes ago · Report
Michael Williams
Michael Williams
Liked it. Especially when he told my party to stop running for the hills. When are you running for Senate, Dr. Dean? We need more people in Congress who have a set, or the country will turn Republican in 2012.
15 minutes ago · Report
April Pendleton
April Pendleton
Other than the skin color and party affiliation...how is this man different from George Bush?
13 minutes ago · Report
Don Pickerel
Don Pickerel
I think he has some great intentions, but unless he can rally the voters to overcome greed in Congress, he won't be able to get the big things through.
11 minutes ago · Report
John Morgan
John Morgan
I think you should run in 2012.
10 minutes ago · Report
Mark Martin
Mark Martin
...i'm afraid it's going to take a little more than what i heard last night to restore my confidence...obama squandered incredible opportunities in the last year, and i'm still not sure he 'gets it'...
9 minutes ago · Report
Will Sipsey
Will Sipsey
since you asked here is something I posted else where in response to the query "have you written you Congressman?:

I wrote all three of our Washington Critters with with the Ranger motto modified: Follow Barak, or offer a constructive alternative or sit down and shut up. Unfortunately they have not selected one of those three options. I am fed up... See More. The Democrats are unable, the Republicans are unwilling. The country drifts. Barak should have been a good deal more pointed in his critique of both parties. I am starting to think of Barak as Casper Milquetoast rather then the tough guy from Chicago politics that he past himself off as.
9 minutes ago · Report
Joe Valenti
Joe Valenti
I think the Republicans need more fiber in their diets. Did you ever see a more constipated looking group of people?
9 minutes ago · Report
Robin Rather
Robin Rather
He needs to get tough and stay tough on jobs, the war and health care. The speech was good, action is better.
7 minutes ago · Report
Margaret Burkert-Smith
Margaret Burkert-Smith
President Obama sounded a little like Howard Dean. No mincing of words while letting both parties know it is time to start working for the American people. I liked it, but will love it if congress actually steps up to the plate and performs as requested.
6 minutes ago · Report
Mark D Fields
Mark D Fields
Just great! Now if he can only inspire the Party of No to reach across and help to govern and actually accomplish something. We shouldn't need a Super Majority in the Senate...
5 minutes ago · Report
Ellen Beth Gill
Ellen Beth Gill
Trickle down health care, trickle down economics. We still worship at the altar of Ronald Reagan and we keep digging our wayinto the hole and out of the developed world. By 2030, we'll probably be Haiti.
4 minutes ago · Report
Debora Deibler
Debora Deibler
Overall, it was excellent!
Although, when he talked about "safe and clean nuclear power" and "clean coal" I groaned, because I don't believe that's possible. I wish he thought differently about those things!
4 minutes ago · Report
Pete McCauley
Pete McCauley
The only way that Obama could truly "deliver" on his campaign promises the way everyone seems to think he should would be for us to eliminate Congress and just go ahead and crown him King. The barrier to progress isn't a failure of Obama's - it's the inability of Congress to get anything done, and their being beholden to the rich & powerful special interests in (not just) this country.
3 minutes ago · Report
Jonny Monolith
Jonny Monolith
I like that he focused on job creation, refocused on healthcare & said something that annoyed Alito about their ridiculous court decision re: corporate donations.

I did NOT like that there was no mention of: Stronger regulation & policing of Wall Street, the Employee Free Choice Act, or the consumer protection agency that being floated in the summer.

Overall, a good speech but still lacking in some points.
3 minutes ago · Report
Ali Sheehey
Ali Sheehey
Liked some, hate the fact that he is not an environmentalist! Fighting global climate change by destroying pristine habitat is such a disaster for all that I have fought my entire life to protect. This makes me very sad and less likely to care about voting anymore.
2 minutes ago · Report
Byron Stepherson
Byron Stepherson
And what a novel concept: the Supreme Court reinstates the freedom of speech and President Obama encourages the states to provide their own method of regulation (from their congresspersons, of course). Wow!
2 minutes ago · Report
Howie Martin
Howie Martin
Glad you asked! Great comments.
a few seconds ago ·