Skip to main content

Setting the stage



It's almost impossible to read the Republican responses to Obama's State of the Union address.  It is as if they weren't even in the same chamber when the speech took place.  But, it is not surprising that the GOP should pick a woman to deliver its formal rebuttal given all the flack they have been getting recently.  Unfortunately, Cathy McMorris Rodgers just repeated the same old tropes.

As Barack Obama said it is time the Republicans accept the Affordable Care Act and suggest means of improving it.  The Act is now firmly in place and is providing many of the benefits it was intended to do.  A good first step by Republican governors would be to approve Medicaid expansion in their states so that more people can have access to affordable health care.

However, the big take-away as far as conservatives are concerned appears to be Obama stating he would use the full power of his executive authority to move forward on policies that the Republicans continue to block in Congress.  This seems to have outraged the GOP, who are now calling him an "imperial president."  Where were they when George Bush proclaimed himself a "war president," using his greatly enhanced executive authority to push forward his conservative agenda?

On another note, Rand Paul seems to think the economy hasn't been growing these past four years, despite all the positive economic indicators.  Once again, he uses the opportunity to extol even more tax cuts and less government spending, being a self-proclaimed Libertarian.

It gets incredibly tiresome, which is why I have to hand it to President Obama for keeping his cool and addressing Congress in civil terms, even though it has fought him every step of this way.  This includes members of his own party who blocked his attempt to close Gitmo and now attempt to put riders on the Affordable Care Act.

Unfortunately, there is no way to really move forward until these intractable elements are removed.  Mitch McConnell would be a good place to start.  The Democrats should make every effort to get Alison Lundgren Grimes elected in Kentucky, especially since this is one state where the Affordable Care Act is working, thanks to the strong support of Governor Steve Beshear.

But, Obama's speech addressed many issues including minimum wage, gender discrimination in the work place, and rebooting American industry.  He pointed to numerous positive examples where his administration has taken the lead, and those where his wife Michelle and Jill Biden have taken the lead.  It was a strong speech, laden with compelling anecdotes, which showed he is in touch with the American mainstream.  Sadly, the Republican party is not.

We can only hope he makes this a "Year of Action."

Comments

  1. As Bill Keller notes at the New York Times, the Republicans will continue their campaign of "confrontation and sabotage" until the American people start voting them out of office.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sadly, true. They seem to know no other way.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

O Pioneers!

It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer.  Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions.  I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters.  Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs.  Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77.  I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not.  Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Colonel

Now with Colonel Roosevelt , the magnum opus is complete. And it deserves to stand as the definitive study of its restless, mutable, ever-boyish, erudite and tirelessly energetic subject. Mr. Morris has addressed the toughest and most frustrating part of Roosevelt’s life with the same care and precision that he brought to the two earlier installments. And if this story of a lifetime is his own life’s work, he has reason to be immensely proud.  -- Janet Maslin -- NY Times . Let the discussion begin!