By Irene F. Starkehaus -
With the mandated formality of threadbare assurances by President Barack Obama that state of the union is strong, stronger, confident and strong, or the strongest it's ever been finally at hand, the incongruity between the State of the Union and the State of OMG – How Am I Going To Dig My Family Out of This Disaster is perhaps starting to bite at the heels of Washington insiders in a way that's unprecedented in American history. I wonder if Washington insiders are smart enough to take notice of these winds of change no matter how faint the winds seem.
Just for the record, I'm not a big fan of the term unprecedented when it comes to reflecting on the State of the Union. Bring me some precedent as far as I'm concerned. Let's see something along the line of proven free market solutions… Even so, you and I both know that no second term president would stand before Congress to report that the state of the union reeks like untreated sewage. That too would be unprecedented albeit true, so what do I know? The president…any president will always report that America is better than it has ever been. When it comes to the State of the Union, what has true got to do with the price of tea in China? Or the price of American debt in China for that matter.
This is why the American people might be better off if the State of the Union Address could just be loaded as a PDF and dropped into our emails by the NSA as they scan for nefarious Tea Party/free speech activities by Midwestern octogenarians rather than have it covered by every channel saving ESPN and the Cartoon Network. Such an act would be a far better reflection of the actual state of the union than any cacophony of professorial "umms" and "aahs" that Barack Obama might produce for the furtherance of canned intellectualism.
Like so many other measures and standards that have been obliterated by this presidency for his simple scorn of truth, the State of the Union Address is no longer relevant – just like unemployment numbers or annual budgets, the number of Obamacare enrollees or the Benghazi rationalizations are no longer relevant. Under Barack Obama's tutelage, freedom and liberty have excused themselves in order to slip into something more comfortable, and comfortable from a progressive administration's point of view is apparently Machiavelli or the Marquis de Sade.
And speaking of truth or the lack thereof, I'd love to tell you that this State of the Union Address represents our national moment of truth…that this is the moment that history will judge us by, but I don't think so. We've gone so far and fast beyond our moment of truth now that it's just a dot in our rear view mirror. When you hand your future over to compulsive liars, you kind of have to know that you are in for a bumpy ride.
As we enter the final years of the Obama presidency, it remains to be seen whether freedom and liberty will stop whoring themselves for free cell phones long enough to notice that the nation is fundamentally changing in favor of decline, or if America has signed on for permanent decay because it comes with an all-you-can-eat contraception and abortifacients buffet. But either way, history is already taking notes.
That doesn't mean all hope is lost. Until we've driven over a cliff, we can always turn the vehicle around and see if we can find where we left truth behind. Maybe the national outlook hasn't reached the point where it has an appetite for an about face, but it might be inching its foot closer to the break at any rate. I suppose we'll always have 30% of Americans who will base their perception of leading indicators by the crease in the president's trousers. But the other 70% might be willing to fix this fiasco.
The Wall Street Journal reports that President Obama will combat unemployment by asking businesses to voluntarily stop discrimination against people who have been out of work for six months or more so that he doesn't have to intervene with new legislation or an executive order that mandates business standards for hiring new employees.
Additionally, the president is now pushing for the Democrat plan to increase the federal wage to $10.10 over three years and then index it to inflation. "Let's declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty and raise the federal minimum wage."
Let us add to the mix the president's proclamation that the time has come to pass comprehensive immigration reform.
Again, there will be that 30% of the population that will hear these three presidential recommendations regarding employment and think, "Hey, I wonder if my free health care includes liposuction."
It's really the other 70% of Americans that Washington insiders should be watching closely...and I'm sure they are working on a drone to accommodate that eventuality as we speak…so how many people will notice that the president's talking points on unemployment, minimum wage and immigration lack congruence? Will that 70% nod in drunken stupor to this year's banquet of Obama-isms or is recovery finally at hand?
