President Obama Gives State of the Union Speech

Yesterday President Obama laid out his vision for the rest of his term in office in his State of the Union address, given before a joint session of Congress.  I did not watch it, but caught most of it from the radio. It was a good speech, as this president is so adept at when presenting prepared material to a group.  Although the President covered many topics, his salient points, as I saw it, were (1) the economic recovery is going full swing, but that it is important that the middle class and poor be able to enjoy the benefits as well as the rich (meaning raise taxes on the higher-income brackets), (2) our foreign policy should be carefully crafted so that we explore and implement a variety of approaches when dealing with our enemies abroad...so that we don't allow ourselves to get mired down in wars, and (3) we should invest in education and infrastructure to keep America at the forefront of the world.  With regard to the last point, he alluded to his recent proposal of granting free community college education (I wonder if that includes soon-to-be old-timers like me who want to do something new as retirement approaches...no, I'm probably excluded) as well as diminishing the significance of the important Keystone XL Pipeline issue now before Congress by stating that the various needed infrastructure construction and repair projects for the country would generate thirty times more jobs than "one pipeline".  And he pushed all of the required liberal social issue buttons, including more than once supporting gay rights and same-sex marriage (which he opposed back in 2008 when that stance was more politically feasible for him).

I don't have a problem with a lot of President Obama's speech, but I do have a major one with this tendency of him to smugly dismiss issues that others consider to be important.  For example, in 2009, after single-handedly forcing NASA to abandon its worthy and ambitious project to establish a base on the moon (after he had promised during the 2008 campaign not to do this), he brushed away any criticism with the flippant comment "We've already been there".  That offended me somehow.  Now it's just this "one pipeline"... just a drop in the bucket, right?  But it is the number one item for consideration for the new Republican congressional majority in both houses and, regardless whether you're for or against the pipeline (I happen to be for it), his casual brushoff of the issue does not bode well for his relationship with either the Senate or the House in the next two years.  No, sadly, I see this speech, which might have been more constructive and conciliatory, to have been little more than oratorical posturing for the primary purpose of shoring up the Democratic Party base for the next election, in other words, the same old "stuff".  Perhaps the saddest thing of all, though, is that regarding this president, whom I have supported through two elections (though not wholeheartedly in the last one), he would still get my vote were he eligible to run again as I look at the sorry list of Republicans (especially Mr. Romney, the perennial candidate) who currently have their power-hungry eyes fixed on his job...