China Times: Obama’s State of the Union Address as “All His Tricks”

ChinaNews wired on Jan. 31: A signed article published in Taiwan’s China Times on Jan. 31 talked about Obama’s State of the Union Address. It is said that although the presidential address was very solemn, the speech content had already been leaked out before Obama’s speech, which made Obama looked like a deflated ball on the congressional address, disappointing enough. The economic rescue plan introduced by the Obama administration for the past two years failed completely; just after two years since his inauguration, with up to $10 billion in national debt, Obama has “exhausted all his tricks.” Never mind serving another term, people can’t help worrying about how Obama can get through the remaining two years.

The article was cited below:

On last Wednesday, Jan. 26 at 9 p.m. eastern U.S. time, President Obama made his annual speech to the Joint House and Senate in Capitol, the State of the Union Address. Why in the evening? Because the While House wanted all American citizens to sit in front of their TVs and listen to their president. According to immediate national poll counted by Neilsen Company, about 11 percent of families in the U.S., which equals 43 million people, listened to the address from home TVs or car radios (for drivers).

Plainly speaking, the effect of the address was not bad, and the expected purposes should be reached. The Dow Jones average opened at 12,000 points the next day, and created the highest stock opening record since June 2008. The only drawback was the leak of the speech content before the president delivered it. I’ve read a New York Times report that, at 7:40 that night, a quarto tabloid named National Journal, which has a poor reputation of digging scoops, published the speech text two hours before it was delivered, which made Obama very unhappy.

The presidential State of the Union Address was a grand event; all cabinet members, Supreme Court Justices and embassy diplomats were invited to attend the ceremony. This time Obama was like a deflated ball, disappointing enough. So at the end of the address, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton routinely approached the president to congratulate him, he responded angrily, “Everybody saw it”; what else was there to congratulate him for?

Another reason for Obama’s mood was the Waterloo the Democratic Party suffered with last year’s midterm election; they lost 54 seats in the House of Representatives, and with those their majority. As a result, Obama had no choice but to congratulate the new House Speaker, Republican John A. Boehner, when giving the speech. Then he continued, “It's no secret that those of us here tonight have had our differences over the last two years. The debates have been contentious; we have fought fiercely for our beliefs. And that's a good thing. That's what a robust democracy demands.”

In fact, Boehner’s conduct is not worthy of the president’s compliments. He is the U.S. Representative in Ohio’s 8th congressional district; his extramarital affair with a beauty was published everywhere last September, spreading his ugly name widely. However, this man has excellent people skills, drawing much popularity in the House of Representatives, so he was still elected Speaker. Evil people are equally bad all over the world, so are America’s.

Obama is known for his superb eloquence; this year’s State of the Union Address was no exception. He said that America would keep on redressing scales in Afghanistan, Iran, Haiti, Guinea, etc., because that’s the founding spirit of the United States. In the last paragraph of his address, Obama admitted that the U.S. government underwent some “political setbacks” last year, some of which he deserved — but he quoted from an eight-year-old boy from Louisiana, who had sent all his accumulated allowance to the president, asking him if he can send this money to people in Haiti; he said that that was American Spirit, as his ending.

By convention, after the Presidential State of the Union Address, the opposing party has the right to rebut. Republicans chose Chairman of the House Budget Committee Paul Ryan, who was elected in Wisconsin, to exercise the right. Ryan’s speech did not catch much attention; on the contrary, Minnesota representative Michele Bachman’s tea party response was very spicy, revealing many flaws in the address.

Bachman listed the statistics since Obama’s taking office, including the unemployment rate rising from 9.4 percent to 10.1 percent. The economic rescue plan introduced by the government was a total failure; the country was indebted up to $10.6 billion, and again lost $1 billion to bailouts. Numbers of people receiving unemployment benefits have been increasing by 400,000 every week, etc.; these data made it difficult for the White House to reply.

After only two years in office, Obama is at his wit’s end. Never mind serving another term; how he can get through the remaining two years has people worried.