Obama to America: ‘Believe It!’

Ever since he recognized, in his confessions to The New Yorker, that he would be adding only a small paragraph — at best — to the history books, Barack Obama seems liberated. “That’s why I believe this can be a breakthrough year for America,” he addressed Congress Tuesday night in his grandiose State of the Union address, twisting this year into an optimistic booster shot for a nation that certainly needs it. “After five years of grit and determined effort, the United States is better positioned for the 21st century than any other nation on Earth,” he assured.

Already five years in the White House, five State of the Union addresses and few of his promises realized, Washington has been chuckling these past few days over Obama’s announcement that he could do more, and that undoubtedly he will achieve not much more than his predecessors. Such were the dashed expectations and drop in his popularity — 41 percent favorable, 50 percent unfavorable in the latest Gallup poll — that the president’s diehard optimism finally succeeded in surprising people.

More than 8 million new jobs were created in the past four years, Obama stressed: The housing market bounced back, the nation’s deficit dropped, the U.S. now produces enough oil that it does not need to import it, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have wound/are winding down and the U.S. could even succeed in stopping Iran’s nuclear program. “A pretty good speech … very powerful,” former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who rarely has kind words for the president, acknowledged Tuesday night on CNN.

At its core, the speech was less spectacular. Essentially, Obama reiterated his traditional exhortations to Congress: Raise the minimum wage, reduce gender inequality, reform the tax system, vote on immigration reform, start children in school from age 4. [In other words], these are excellent propositions that have already been included in most of his previous speeches but are all blocked by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. Once again, Obama promised Tuesday night to enact executive orders to achieve as much as he could. As such, he will be raising the minimum wage of federal government contractors. Several hundreds of thousands of workers could benefit, providing that their contracts are renewed, but not the millions of others who cannot feed themselves on their current salaries.

Obama’s self-confidence and restored optimism also translated into several well-aimed jabs, such as a dig at Congress — yet again — which voted more than 40 times in vain against health care reform. [There is also] his dig at Russia’s homophobic laws. Proud of their values and open-mindedness, Americans are soon going to garner gold medals in the Sochi Olympic Games, he promised. “Believe it,” Obama concluded.