I listened to the President’s State of the Union address last evening. To my ears it was unremarkable. It was a “glass is half full” description of the country offering motivation to move forward, but I doubt that the speech will in and of itself change anything. It certainly was in stark contrast to the right-wing view that the country is mostly destroyed by Obama’s policies and will be completely destroyed before he leaves office. Obama urged Congress to extend unemployment benefits, raise the minimum wage to $10.10 and pass immigration reform—and to stop voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act after 40 unsuccessful tries, but significantly, there was not a single allusion or joke aimed at birthers.
What I found remarkable, and what prompted me to write this article, is that there was not one Republican response to the speech, but two, and three if you count the one by Rand Paul. I’m not buying Paul’s description of the three responses as “complimentary.” What they signal to me is that not only are Republicans not willing to work with Democrats, they are not willing to work with each other. It suggests that the old saying “cooler heads will prevail” is no longer valid. The book Double Down: Game Change 2012 that I’m reading now talks about the deep division in the Republican Party over the Romney candidacy, and Romney’s loss to Obama has to strengthen the position of the more extreme elements on the right.
My high school Civics teacher described politics as a pendulum that swung back and forth between a liberal and conservative consensus. The farther political events move from the center the greater the accumulated reaction resisting it, just as the acceleration towards the center is greater as the bob moves to its extreme positions. What is impossible for someone like me to see is how far the bob will swing in the current cycle before it heads back. An NBC poll says that the 28% of the country thinks we are on the right track, and 63% on the wrong track. That would suggest acceleration, but it doesn’t say what direction the acceleration is in.
I think the next few years will be interesting.
I’m by no means a straight D ticket voter, but a divided Republican party is a good thing in my opinion. They’ll be less likley to cause lame duck congresses, as they’re too busy fighting with each other to fight/stall every idea the Democrats pitch.
Florida representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen gave another GOP response in Spanish.
I’ve always thought of Obama as a Centrist techno/bureaucrat (that is not a negative criticism) and this SOTU did nothing to change that opinion. Barring no big developments, I think history will say that he did the best with what he was left with from the previous administration considering the unprecedented level of Congressional obstruction and Fox News.
This article does not signal a move into general political commentary at Obama Conspiracy Theories. I did manage to mention birthers once 😉
In hard birther news, today was the deadline for respondent’s briefs before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the Grinols case. And what’s this about 6 inches of snow in Hawaii?
That’s correct, and that’s why I’ve always been critical of parties which abuse the system the way the GOP has done it in the recent past.
Because on the other hand, you need a strong opposition so the ruling party has no balance anymore.
When Helmut Kohl was in his last term as German chancellor, after nearly 16 years in office, he and his party pretty much behaved like nothing can ever touch them. So even though I was a supporter of his party, I could not support it in the state it was in after these 16 years (and voted Social Democrat for the first time in my life).
A weak conservative opposition would be a good thing in the beginning, but even the most benevolent approach would probably turn for the worse if Democrats had a majority for, say, a comparable amount of time (16 years).
Not because the party in general tends to develop like that but because such long times in power tend to favour politicians who’d rather be king than representative of the people.
The most extreme examples would be the very long tenures of the presidents of the IOC and FIFA – they all start as administrators and eventually become little dictators hell-bent on securing re-election, even if they need to bribe people.
Another example from Germany is Bavaria where the CSU has ruled for 50+ years with clear majority, and the amount of cronyism and sleaze is staggering.
I think every party would be victim to this, Republicans and Democrats alike.
Didn’t Obots claim that rather would Hawaii freeze over before Obama would be ruled ineligible? 😉
It’s just another huge load of schadenfreude looking at how birthers believe “something big” is coming in March (meaning Zullo’s electron-shattering evidence, CPAC, AL SC ruling and much more I forgot).
Meant to write: “so the ruling party doesn’t have no-one to balance them anymore”.
Birthers will not be pleased with the following:
Updated: Jan. 26, 12:31AM ET with Final Numbers
An overwhelming majority of Americans approved of the overall message in President Obama’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, according to a CBS News poll of speech watchers.
According to the poll, which was conducted online by Knowledge Networks immediately after the president’s address, 91 percent of those who watched the speech approved of the proposals Mr. Obama put forth during his remarks. Only nine percent disapproved.
Last year, 83 percent of viewers approved of Mr. Obama’s State of the Union remarks.
This year, 82 percent of those who watched the speech said they approve of the president’s plans for the economy, up from 53 percent who approved before the speech. Eighty percent said they approved of Mr. Obama’s plans for the deficit — in contrast to 45 percent before the speech. Eighty-three percent approved of Mr. Obama’s proposals regarding Afghanistan, which received only a 57 percent approval rating beforehand.
The sight of Democrats and Republicans sitting side by side gave speech watchers more confidence about the possibility of bipartisan cooperation: 62 percent said they expect more bipartisanship now than in years past.
In his speech, Mr. Obama outlined ways to limit federal spending and reign in the deficit. Of those watching, fifty-six percent said they think the president’s economic plans could reduce government spending; 43 percent were not persuaded.
The president had more success convincing viewers that his economic proposals would lead to job growth and increased success on the international playing field: 75 percent of viewers said they thought the president’s plans would make America more competitive in the world economy, and 75 percent also said they thought the plans outlined in his speech would create jobs. That’s up from 55 percent before the speech.
Mr. Obama also defended health care reform in the speech — and approval of the law saw a slight boost among speech watchers. Sixty-five percent said they approved of the health care law after the address, a nine-point boost from pre-speech numbers.
Americans who watched the speech were generally more Democratic than the nation as a whole. Forty-four percent of viewers polled were Democrats and 25 percent were Republicans. (Historically speaking, that is not an unusual statistic: a president’s supporters are more likely than his opponents to watch State of the Union addresses.)
Unfortunately I fear that the next few years will be interesting in the sense of the curse “may you live in interesting times”.
Cue someone on the right yelling “NLP” or “hypnosis” in 3… 2… 😉
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” – Lord Acton
There is a reason why WALKING DEAD is such a hit.
I hope you guys manage to avoid cannibalism. 🙂
Did your High School civics teacher tell you that the center over which the pendulum swings shifts? Did he or she tell you how the center has shifted throughout the history of America? Did he or she show you by example of the history of other nations how such a shift has been accomplished? How did it shift in Germany during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? Russia? China? Did he or she demonstrate to you how the mass psychology of a population can be altered?
Joey
“Birthers will not be pleased with the following:
Updated: Jan. 26, 12:31AM ET with Final Numbers
An overwhelming majority of Americans approved of the overall message in President Obama’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, according to a CBS News poll of speech watchers.”
Joey, It seems that 33.5 million Americans watched at least some of the President’s SOTU address. Is that about 10% of the population? It is no surprise that those who like the President would tune in and like his speech, About 90 % of Americans did not watch or listen to the dreadfully politicized presentation that amounts to a mockery of the Article II section 3 constitutional mandate that “He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient…” Many of those are aware that the President has selectively and willfully disregarded the next to last clause of that same section 3: ” he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”.
If you truly take comfort in thinking that the American public supports the prevaricating president, I fear for your happiness when you awaken from your trance.
Well I am glad that you are not partisan in your analysis……
Did you complain when President G.W. Bush said he didn’t need to follow the law?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/world/americas/30iht-web.0430bush.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/18/washington/18cnd-nsa.html
I doubt his memory is that long.
Which has exactly ZERO to do with his eligibility.
sfjeff,
“Well I am glad that you are not partisan in your analysis……”
If your statement is a statement of approval of my non-partisan position, I am glad that you are glad. If you are attempting irony, you jumped to an unwarranted conclusion. To clarify: I certainly do not support the unworthies of either major political party.
gorefan,
“Did you complain when President G.W. Bush said he didn’t need to follow the law?”
Complain? No. Did I point out his lawlessness? Yes! And pointed out many of his other unconstitutional attacks on Constitutional government too. You see, laws are too often passed in contradiction to the limitations of Constitutional specification. A president who sees to the enforcement of unconstitutional law with full knowledge that it is unconstitutional is merely entered into a conspiracy with lawless lawmakers. He is in violation of his oath of office specified in Article II section 1 of the Constitution of the United States: :–“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Likewise a president who takes it upon himself to change the law or to choose not to enforce the law is in violation of his constitutional duty. Article II sec 3: “…he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed…”
Do I draw attention to Mr. Obama’s constitutional qualification to hold office?
Again from Article II sec. 1
“No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”
According to Emerich de Vattel’s 1758 treatise The Law of Nations which yields much of the background information and terminology accessed by our Constitution’s framers, a natural born citizen is one born of two citizens of a country. Mr. Obama’s father was not one of those. Many of the Democrat party pointed out that Mr. McCain’s birth occurred on an army base in Panama and though his parents were certifiably US citizens, they brought his legitimacy into question. So thin was the contention that on April 2008, the U.S. Senate approved a non-binding resolution recognizing McCain’s status as a natural-born citizen. Subsequently legal opinion was offered that he had always been a natural born citizen despite his having been born on a military base outside the United States.
None questioned Mr. Obama’s unquestionable problem or asked to investigate his transfer of citizenship from Indonesia where Indonesian citizenship was required of those attending school there. Mr Obama received an childhood education there that taught him a lifelong love of certain elements of Islam. No document demonstrates that he enjoys a restored citizenship in the United States. That enigma should be easy enough to resolve by display of the appropriate documentation.
Our whole government is overdue for a house cleaning. It might be too late in our national experience to restore the integrity of the Republic, but we all should do our best to learn and perform honorable duty. No? Should we just make it up as we go? Well how is that approach working out now?
And?
Vattel is not the Constitution.
Barack Obama was born in the United States.
All of us know that anyone born in the United States is a Natural Born Citizen(except children of diplomats).
We all know this.
I was taught this in the 1970’s by my very conservative civics teacher.
That is why this was never an issue for the voters who voted for Obama.
Or the Electoral College who elected him.
Or Congress when they confirmed him.
Or Chief Justice Roberts for any of the three times he was sworn in.
Other than a few crackpots, seriously no one believes the Birther ‘two citizen parents because Vattel wrote the Constitution” theory.
And if you look around for definitions of NBC prior to 2008, they all fall in line with what we all know-
That anyone born in the U.S. can aspire to grow up and be elected President.
Even a scrawny child of an African born in Hawaii.
Actually, it’s kind of funny to me about the 2 citizen parent theory. I grew up in a College town, we would get a lot of visiting foreign professors and foreign students. A lot of them had kids, The head of the UI College of Law visited us one time and explained why 2 sisters, one born in the US and one born in India, could not both be President…even though their parents were both citizens of India. Of course, it was because the older one was born in the US while they were going to school here, and the other was born in India. The year was 1971. Vattel was not even mentioned. So, while your ideals are not the law of the land, you still have hope. You have a vote, you lost. Get over it. You can show nothing in history that it was ever different and we can pull up quotes, cites, court cases and history that show you have no clue what you’re talking about.
What “appropriate documentation” would satisfy you?
Isn’t that up to the voters? Or do you have something else in mind?
What exactly are you doing to “restore the integrity of the Republic”?
Alexander Hamilton told us where to look for the meaning of terms in the Constitution and it wasn’t in Vattel’s Law of Nations.
“…where so important a distinction in the Constitution is to be realized, it is fair to seek the meaning of terms in the statutory language of that country from which our jurisprudence is derived.”
This is wrong. There was no requirement for citizenship to attend school. In fact it would be virtually impossible for the President to even become an Indonesian citizen or lose his US citizenship under the laws of both Indonesia and the United States.
John Henry: It might be too late in our national experience to restore the integrity of the Republic, but we all should do our best to learn and perform honorable duty. No?”
The integrity of the Republic is just fine. The Founders created a system of Government that could evolve. Evolve it has. Some of their ideals, unmistakable in meaning, needed a hundred years to be realized; some still haven’t.
And let me tell you, John: I’m getting pretty tired of hearing you folks run down America.
What we have become, the Founders would absolutely love. The liberal/conservative battle is not one which simply hasn’t decided a winner yet. It has produced a nation that is often the envy of the world.
Trial by jury. Innocent until proven guilty. Free to practice any religion, or none. Part orderly, part messy. A Government that says that you can’t exercise unlimited freedom if it deprives a fellow citizen of his or hers. Where the fire department doesn’t step over a poor man to rescue the rich man. Where we help the deserving, even if it means we are sometimes taken for granted by the undeserving. Where we step in to help people overseas, even if some of them curse us when our backs are turned.
Where as raucous as our politics are, the State of the Union was attended by Republicans, Democrats, Independents, a Socialist or two, some world-class capitalists, Judges and Justices, Generals and Admirals, the religious and the secular, newbies and oldtimers. And you know what? NOT ONE IF THEM THINKS OUR PRESIDENT IS AN IMPOSTOR. Not one.
Even the denizens of that swamp-cuckoo’s nest are fundamentally sane. Whatever they think of him, they know he IS the President. All but maybe Stockman, which says nothing good about him.
Then they all went home.
That’s a great damn country, John. You can’t denigrate it around me without opposition.
Besides your other long debunked nonsense what actually led you to believe Indonesian citizenship was required to go to school there?
Are you claiming this school doesn’t actually exist? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakarta_International_School
School has been operating since 1951 and is one of many like it in Indonesia. So there’s a school right there filled with children who aren’t indonesian citizens who attend school in Indonesia.
Those Americans who cared about politics enough to vote (58% of eligible voters) DID reelect Barack Obama and he did receive 62% of the Electoral vote in 2012.
I’ll take comfort in “four more years!”
When Barack Obama arrived in Indonesia, his parents enrolled him at St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic school. That school was founded by Dutch missionaries during the colonial period and it was the preferred school for the children of European ex-patriates. There was no requirement that a student by Indonesian in order to attend a private school.
This is wrong. In fact it would be LITERALLY impossible for the President to even become an Indonesian citizen
Correct. Indonesian law in force at the time had age five as the cut off for adopted children to be able to gain Indonesian citizenship. Barack Obama was six years old when he arrived in Indonesia and he was never legally adopted by Lolo Soetoro.
I don’t think this is quite right. President Obama would have needed to appear before an Indonesian official at Lolo Soetoro’s home before his 5th birthday to gain citizenship by virtue of his adoption, but I don’t believe failure to do so would have prevented him from going through the naturalization process later. It does, however, make it impossible for President Obama to have gained Indonesian citizenship before he registered at the Catholic school he attended, which is, of course, the only evidence the birthers have that he was adopted by Lolo and that he was an Indonesian citizen. Whatever your interpretation, the one thing that is certain is that the birther theories are all inane.
That’s a bit like “are you still beating your wife?”. Since he never lost his US citizenship, there’s obviously no document documenting it was ever “restored”.
It’s a bit like asking your mother for her sex change documentation and then claim “because you can’t prove you ever changed (back) from a man to a woman, you’re obviously still a man”. Crazy. Batsh*t crazy.
That swiftboat has sailed. He was re-elected and nothing you can do to try to smear his upbringing will ever change the fact he’s your legal President.
All those birther pipe dreams that majority job disapproval somehow translates into “they all want to remove him, they will all turn birther” have been around since his first day in office and are still around on this ~1616th day in office. Any century now…
….and of course, seeing as Indonesia did not permit the holding of dual nationality, legally becoming a naturalized Indonesian citizen was also out of the question for a US citizen unless he first renounced his US citizenship which was in turn out of the question for a 6 year old child.
All roads still lead to epic fail no matter how many John Henrys try to wash and re-rinse.
Why hasn’t anybody pointed this out? This changes EVERYTHING!
Like whom?
There’s a truck somewhere missing a turnip.
Yes, but it would have to be much later. Indonesian law said (maybe still does say) a minor can’t change citizenship until reaching adulthood (and it might even be a couple of years after that: I _think_ it was 23, but I’m not certain I remember it correctkly). Period (except for adopted 4-and-unders). Can’t do it him/herself, can’t have it done by parents/imam/Communist Party infiltrator groomer.
*stomp* *whistle*
Well said. Very well said.
First of all, it’s the Democratic party, not the Democrat party. Only died-in the-wool Republicans call it the Democrat party, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t believe your “a pox on both parties” protestations.
Second, I don’t know a single Democrat who questioned McCain’s eligibility. A lawsuit was filed in New Hampshire challenging McCain’s eligibility, but it was filed by a registered Republican, Fred Hollander.
You appear to be confused about the rules of evidence. As the accuser, you first have to provide the “appropriate documentation” that Obama lost his U.S. citizenship while in Indonesia. Good luck with that, because both Supreme Court precedent and the State Department make it clear that it was impossible for a child of Obama’s age to renounce his U.S. citizenship. And, as other have pointed out, the idea that only Indonesian citizens could attend school in Indonesia is a myth created in the fevered imagination of Phil Berg.