The Statist Of The Union

     President Obama gave his State Of The Union speech last night as required by the Constitution. The speech was watched by 13% fewer people than last years, which in turn was watched by fewer than the year before. With so little interest in what the leader of the ever-decreasing free world has to say, I wonder how he was re-elected last fall. In fact, it is so bad for the President that his number of viewers for last night's speech was about the same as George W. Bush got for his 2008 State Of The Union, and that was after 7 years of 24/7 demonization of the President by the Left and the main stream media.
     As far as the substance of President Obama's speech, well there wasn't any. Unless you want to count engaging in the telling of falsehoods and the blame game as substance. The President once again misrepresented his record on jobs, saying that 6 million new jobs have been created under his watch. The truth, for those interested, is that there are 8.2 million fewer people working now than when Barack Obama took office in January of 2009. This according to his own Department of Labor Statistics. That is why the labor force participation rate is the lowest it has been in over 30 years. Some of the people who have left the labor market have retired, but with a real unemployment rate over 14%, wouldn't their jobs be filled by those who are looking for work? So in order to believe the President and others on the Left, one would have to believe that when someone retires, so does their job. This would mean that no one would be left working after just a couple of generations.
     President Obama also used his Statist Of The Union show to call for higher taxes on the rich, demonize Republicants and push his far Left agenda with regards to everything from energy policy to gun control. Traditionally, the State Of The Union has been an opportunity for the President to inform the country of the challenges overcome in the previous year and those that must be faced in the coming one. But as it is with every speech, appearance, death and tragedy, this President has used the solemn and sacred duty required of him by the Constitution to engage in petty and crass politics. In fact, Barack Obama looked less like a President after his fourth State Of The Union at the beginning his fifth year in office, and more like a community organizer.
     If you missed the State Of The Union speech last night, don't worry, you can catch the re-run with Barack Obama's next speech. In fact, if the President was so concerned about conserving energy, he could have saved a bundle of it by just having the networks re-run his State Of The Union from last year, or the year before, or the year before that. I wonder, are there any intellectually engaged Democrats who are tired of hearing the same broken record of Barack Obama? Or have they abandoned any hope of change from the man who promised both hope and change and has only delivered the petty divisiveness of a community organizer and common street thug.