“He reminded everyone of the American history, what drives us, what is best about us, what brings out the best in us, the challenges, the commonalities we have and the diversity”, said Pelot. That approval rating is a direct result of the gridlock in Washington that has persisted during Obama’s seven years in office. “It’s the lesson of Vietnam; it’s the lesson of Iraq; and we should have learned it by now”.
Advertisement
“We are facing the most risky terrorist threat our nation has seen since September 11”, Haley said.
He took the same tack on foreign policy: “So is all the rhetoric you hear about our enemies getting stronger and America getting weaker”, Obama said. “Ask the leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, who was taken out past year, or the perpetrator of the Benghazi attacks, who sits in a prison cell. You can lean on the greatness of America in making your case”. We’ve already reduced student loan payments to 10 percent of a borrower’s income.
Obama said that curing cancer is plausible within our lifetime.
Democrat Bob Casey says it struck an optimistic tone, and highlighted Obama’s achievements. Obama alluded to Biden’s own loss of his son to cancer this past year in tasking the vice-president to lead a new national effort to conquer the disease. “She has promised throughout her campaign to extend and expand Barack Obama’s failed policies”, she said in her statement.
By that standard, Obama’s speeches are among the simplest yet.
“We got work to do and we have to do it in a bipartisan way. There’s no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide, and I guarantee I’ll keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office”.
But Obama did offer some proposals, confronting a Congress largely hostile to his agenda by mentioning initiatives that are dead on arrival, including immigration reform and closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“Tonight’s speech was important”, he said.
Trump, who is leading the race for the Republican nomination, has called for the deportation of all 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States and barring of all Muslims from entering the country. “That’s the story ISIL wants to tell; that’s the kind of propaganda they use to recruit”, Obama said, warning against pushing away vital Americans allies in the Middle East by “echoing the lie” that the group represents Islam.
Advertisement
“In spite of the president’s upbeat talk about how the U.S. economy is getting better, and his repeated expressions of confidence about the future, public opinion polls show unprecedented levels of distrust by Americans in politicians of both major parties, as well as distrust of the media, and historically unprecedented levels of pessimism about the country’s future”, Weber said.
