Campaign Sputnik

Obama’s second SOTU speech qualifies as one of the most fatuous in history. First, the positive–he did not insult the Supreme Court this time.

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This speech requires little in the way of analysis. It was his second major campaign speech; Mournapalooza being the first. Everything Obama says and does going forward will be about getting himself reelected. He’s never been one prone to putting the well being of the nation first and he’s certainly not going to start now. What’s amazing is not Obama’s duplicity –we’re used to that now. Rather, it’s astonishing that anyone still falls for it. He’s been playing that anti earmark game for years. His sudden pro America, pro business posturing is laughable. He actually took credit for “tax cuts” which he fought fiercely from Day One. By now, most Americans understand that their taxes didn’t get cut. Obama was forced to relent on not raising taxes. There were some moments of genuine hilarity. Imagine Obama lecturing us on the deficit and cutting spending. It’s a lot like OJ preaching to us about the scourge of domestic violence. At the same time, Obama offered up the mathematically impossible proposition that what we really ought to do is spend more money. A fifth grader can see the inanity. A gaggle of speech writers and advisers, led by Bill Daley, sat down and said, hey, throw in something about tort reform–they love that! Talk about cutting the deficit! To get himself reelected, Obama needs the independent voters. Thus, he has to play to that crowd and make believe he is no longer the America hating lefty we have all come to know. Everything the president says and does is in furtherance of his reelection. America fell for this phony centrism once and we’ll be paying for that mistake for generations. As for the peculiar Sputnik analogy–it makes no sense in the context of the speech. Perhaps someone on Team O is trying to rebrand him as Kennedyesque. Or Sputnik could well be the perfect emblem for the Obama campaign. (Joy Tiz is the author of It's Not Easy Being God: The Real George Soros)