State of the Union: It's Bush's fault!!!

Over the weekend, I've been listening to the pundits wondering what the President needs to say in his State of the Union Address. All of their concerns are about his lower standing in the country now which has been reinforced with the Democrat losses in Virginia and New Jersey for their Governors, and the most recent in Massachussetts with the election of Scott Brown to the Senate.

I find it interesting that they are more worried about the President losing the backing of the American people and how to get it back rather than what the Republicans will now insist on now that they have a seat at the table by virtue of their new numbers. But that's a discussion for another time.

The State of the Union is a requirement of the Constitution in Article II Section 3. It is not required to be given in person. In fact, he must be invited to the House to be able to even address the Congress. George Washington gave a state of the union address but Thomas Jefferson decided that it resembled too much the Monarchs giving their addresses, and discontinued it. It was picked up and started again by Woodrow Wilson in 1913.

There are things that I think are pretty certain about this President and this State of the Union. These are very simple things that anyone could predict. It's unlikely that National Security will be the first thing he talks about because he and his administration has screwed up so bad in the three terrorist attacks we've had in the past year since he became President. It is the most important thing that a President is responsible for, but with his weakness on National Security I'll be very surprised if he talks about that first.

Another thing we can be pretty assured of is that he'll blame "the previous adminstration" for all of the country's woes. He'll say at least once that he "inherited" whatever topic he's going to talk about. He'll likely make excuses for some of the things he's done that didn't work or that people disagree with saying that they did the same as the previous administration. For example, he'll likely comment on the terrorists being tried in New York saying that Bush did the same thing with the shoe bomber.

It's also a pretty good bet that Obama will use the term "I" an awful lot in his speech and at some point, after talking about himself will say that it's not about him. Or he may start off saying it's not about him, then spend a tremendous amount of time saying "I", or "me".

I'm sure he'll talk about the evils of Wall St., the evils of the Insurance companies, and the evils of Bankers. Yet, he wants to control Wall St., take over insurance and talk more about his bank tax saying it's wrong for banks to pass those costs on to consumers.

One thing I'm sure he won't do is he won't bow to the American people, nor the Congress as he did in Saudi Arabia, Japan and China. It's also pretty much a given that his speech won't be uplifting and positive about the United States. I just wonder if he'll call America and its' people "arrogant" as he has said to other countries about us in the past.

Then we'll turn on CNN or MSNBC and hear the pundits say how his speech will be a "game changer" and how he pefectly laid the blame of the current problems at the feet of George W. Bush.

Gee, now that I know all of this, I guess I don't have to watch it. Perhaps I could watch reruns of Tom and Jerry instead and get some real mind stimulating television viewing in on Wednesday night.

You're welcome to comment.

Brett