Barack Obama Did His Duty — Nothing More

Obama’s State of the Union speech was delivered according to pompous ritual. To that ritual belongs the celebration of American greatness and a wake-up call to a new direction.

Making “Sputnik shock” understandable to the Facebook generation is almost as difficult as explaining America’s one-time fear of Elvis Presley’s gyrating pelvis. It’s clear why Barack Obama — born two years after John F. Kennedy’s challenge to America to reach new frontiers and win the race to the moon against the Soviet Union — chose the Sputnik analogy: America is stagnating and falling behind China, India and other success-hungry upstarts.

The president implored the joint Congress and the nation to surpass the rest of the world (again) in matters of ingenuity, competitiveness and educational quality. Obama declared that America’s infrastructure and basic research had to be the best. He encouraged his countrymen to become not only soldiers but also teachers: “If you want to make a difference in the life of a child, become a teacher. Your country needs you.”

Who could object to encouraging excellence? A number of sensible Americans, Republicans and Democrats alike, don’t like a State of the Union address that still owes the voters something: namely, an explanation of how a nation with nearly 10 percent unemployment intends to repay all the debt it is incurring with this investment in the future.

The only concrete economy measure proposed by the President was to freeze domestic discretionary spending for five years. That will amount to pocket change. Social Security, Medicare and defense budgets will not be cut.

Republicans, buoyed by their recently won House majority, are demanding massive cuts in all government programs — except for defense. The people also demand reduction of the ruinous deficits that endanger future generations. But four out of five people also say they don’t want Social Security or Medicare touched either. The German newspaper Bild Zeitung describes that kind of paradox as “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.”

Barack Obama knows that the voters’ inclinations are irreconcilable. It consists, on the one hand, of remaining convinced that America must remain the chosen nation while, on the other hand, being afraid that it is going the way of other empires in history.

Therefore, the president’s lofty rhetoric had to be balanced between the shameless bragging the public longed for and a self-critical wakeup call for a new direction. Obama presented himself as a balanced centrist who wanted bipartisan cooperation and compromise for the good of the country.

Early surveys showed a majority of the 50 million who watched the speech had a positive reaction. Citizens want politicians in Washington to work on their behalf rather than engaging in egotistical war games. Unless Obama’s strongly increasing popularity figures are wrong, a majority of Americans believe they now have a president working for all Americans, not just for his electoral base.

Foreign observers are still constantly amazed after so many years at just how regally pompous the State of the Union speech is; speeches from the throne staged in a nation founded on a rejection of feudalism and the abandonment of royalty.

A childlike longing for an all-powerful king (or dictator) capable of making everything right with God’s help co-exists curiously alongside the robust self-regulation of checks and balances. Obama promised dozens of times that he would create jobs, jobs, jobs as though he’s capable of giving the people work and food by decree.

Meanwhile, the Republicans demand that Obama create jobs, jobs, jobs without government stimulus programs or other subsidies but by tax cuts alone, as if the marketplace alone is the only solution to healing the economy.

As he spoke, even garnering sporadic applause from the opposition, one Republican representative tweeted the true convictions of his party: “Mr. President, you don’t believe in the Constitution. You believe in socialism.”

For many, what wasn’t said in the address was more important than what was. Obama made no mention of stronger gun laws or of growing American poverty along with declining property values and mortgage foreclosures. He was silent on the frozen Middle East peace process and could think of nothing to say about the disgrace of Guantanamo.

The ritual advertising and accountability speech that originated as an annual event with President Woodrow Wilson in 1913 cannot, of course, satisfy everyone. None of them has ever contained anything truly memorable. Many U.S. commentators refer to them scornfully: George Will described them saying, “Every president, regardless of party, tries to stroke every erogenous zone in electorate.”

Others recall indignantly that Thomas Jefferson rejected delivering such a speech as being “too kingly” and founded a tradition of delivering the address to Congress in writing, a tradition that endured for more than a hundred years. Considered in the light of the internet age and the 24-hour news cycle, the president’s minstrel act performed before the American people does seem mildly amusing.

An enlightened U.S. media realizes that. There is never a lack of satirical ideas, such as the most recent one that allowed a politically intermingled audience to better get through the great event. That recommended forming Non-Smokers Emergency Societies, new romances and therapeutic pairings of politicians who otherwise can’t stand one another. In the end, the big hug-in was just as irrelevant as were the little scandals.

Democrats rose to applaud, as the State of the Union Fitness Program requires; Republicans had a somewhat more sedentary evening. John Boehner, the new Speaker of the House who was on constant display along with Vice President Joe Biden during the speech, looked absolutely exhausted in his ostentatious indifference. They should have given him a cigarette and a glass of red wine, provided he’s partial to them. The pathos in the chamber also went out when the lights were extinguished. The president had done his duty.