Obama’s State of the Union: America is already great
President Barack Obama used his final State of the Union speech on Tuesday to acknowledge American anxieties about the economy and national security while delivering a defiant, campaign-style rejection of Republican charges that he will leave his successor a country that is poorer, weaker, and under siege from the Islamic State.
Without ever naming them, Obama took shots at GOP presidential candidates like Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. He mocked Republicans as “lonely” deniers of climate change and accused them of “peddling fiction” about his economic record and blowing “political hot air” about foreign dangers to America, including ISIS.
SLIDESHOW – President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address >>>
For a president who insists he’s glad not to be running for reelection, Obama sounded eager to mix it up with his critics — and anxious to win back Americans, who, by large majorities, tell pollsters that the country is heading in the wrong direction as his consequential two-term presidency draws to a close.
Nearly a generation after Bill Clinton told struggling Americans “I feel your pain,” Obama blamed technology and globalization for “economic disruptions that strain working families,” and widely shared anger that the American political system “is rigged in favor of the rich or the powerful or some special interest.”
“It’s one of the few regrets of my presidency — that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better,” Obama said in the section of the speech that senior aides had flagged as the night’s most important message.
“As frustration grows, there will be voices urging us to fall back into our respective tribes, to scapegoat fellow citizens who don’t look like us, or pray like us, or vote like we do, or share the same background,” he warned. “We can’t afford to go down that path.”
The president’s proposed remedies — an end to drawing congressional districts to benefit one political party, new rules to curb the influence of money on politics, and making it easier to vote — seemed unlikely to get through Congress.
And by blaming technology and globalization for American economic worries, Obama essentially let himself off the hook.
While Obama deplored toxic, tribal politics, he did not shy away from attacks on Republicans, or even the entire Congress. And while Obama’s opening joke may have mainly targeted Republicans, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders may have felt it a little too close to home.
“For this final one, I’m going to try to make it a little shorter — I know some of you are antsy to get back to Iowa,” he quipped at the beginning of his hour-long speech. “I’ve been there. I’ll be shaking hands afterwards if you want some tips.”
Obama never named Trump, but repeatedly bashed the brash developer’s calls for a complete halt to immigration by Muslims and his “Make America great again” campaign slogan.
“There have been those who told us to fear the future, who claimed we could slam the brakes on change, who promised to restore past glory if we just got some group or idea that was threatening America under control,” Obama said.
“We need to reject any politics that targets people because of race or religion,” the president declared. “When politicians insult Muslims, whether abroad, or fellow citizens, when a mosque is vandalized, or a kid is called names, that doesn’t make us safer. That’s not telling it what — telling it like it is, it’s just wrong. It diminishes us in the eyes of the world.”
Obama also leveled a veiled slap at Cruz, who suggested last month that he would carpet-bomb the Islamic State “into oblivion” — a difficult task, given that the terrorist army, also known as the IS or ISIL, often embeds its troops in populated areas, raising the risk of disastrous civilian casualties.
President Obama delivers his final State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Jan. 12. (Photo: Evan Vucci/Pool/Reuters)
“Our answer needs to be more than tough talk or calls to carpet-bomb civilians. That may work as a TV soundbite, but it doesn’t pass muster on the world stage,” Obama said.
Those words came as the president defends his approach to defeating ISIS amid deep popular skepticism that his approach is working — skepticism that has turned to anger in the aftermath of the Nov. 13 massacres in Paris and the more recent attack in San Bernardino.
“As we focus on destroying ISIL, over-the-top claims that this is World War III just play into their hands,” he said. “Masses of fighters on the back of pickup trucks, twisted souls plotting in apartments or garages — they pose an enormous danger to civilians, they have to be stopped, but they do not threaten our national existence.”
Obama rejected Republican claims that his campaign against ISIS has been a wavering, uncertain affair. “If you doubt America’s commitment — or mine — to see that justice is done, just ask Osama bin Laden,” he boasted.
A few hours earlier, at a briefing for reporters, White House Communications Director Jen Psaki had boiled the speech down to what seemed to be its essential anti-Trump-ism.
“America is already great,” she said. It’s an argument Democrats have been trying to make for some time.
