Tuesday night’s superficially unremarkable State of the Union address was fine – the way the person you’re in a bad relationship with says they’re fine as they choose to leave you behind.
Advertisement
The president also said the United States is in the middle of the “longest streak of private sector job creation in history”, adding that 14 million new jobs have been created.
Obama on Wednesday hit numerous same themes of the speech, in which he called for tolerance toward people of different faiths, recounted what he’s doing to protect America from the spread of Islamic State-inspired terrorism and described an economic rebound that has seen the national unemployment rate drop to 5 percent, half of what it was when he took office in 2009.
“That doesn’t mean that you go around insulting people and thinking that that is clever, or that is being honest, or telling it straight”, he said. She called them out for what they have done, just like Obama called out Democrats and Republicans. Americans have a choice to make in November, he said, and he spelled out the case for his side.
“When politicians insult Muslims, when a mosque is vandalised, or a kid bullied, that doesn’t make us safer”, Mr Obama said.
Obama painted a picture of a country that was “the most powerful nation on Earth” with the “strongest, most durable economy in the world”, a country that was ready to take on the challenges of a fast-changing world. “The world respects us not just for our arsenal; it respects us for our diversity and our openness and the way we respect every faith”, he said. Period. It’s not even close.
“The world will look to us to help solve these problems, and our answer needs to be more than tough talk or calls to carpet-bomb civilians”. “That may work as a TV sound bite, but it doesn’t pass muster on the world stage”. And he called out Ted Cruz – without naming him – for advocating indiscriminate bombing of ISIL-held areas.
And South Carolina Governor, Nikki Haley, said in the party’s official response his record “had fallen short of his soaring words”.
“Her goal was to respond to the president, and be more specific in just pointing out that his comments on how great the economy is, how strong our military is – the president was just making it up out of thin air”, Huckabee said. “We must resist that temptation”, Haley said, during her speech.
The Republican presidential candidates debating tonight at the North Charleston Coliseum, would do well to emulate the persuasive – yet unifying – message delivered Tuesday night by Gov. Haley.
FILE – In this January 20, 2015 file-pool photo, President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington.
In light of the widening political divide, President Obama recommends, “if we want a better politics…we have to change the system to reflect our better selves”.
Advertisement
“I’m announcing a new national effort to get it done”.
