Last night Victor Davis Hanson posted his comments on President Obama’s State of the Union address at National Review last night.
Mr. Hanson listed what he considered the five major points of the speech:
1. After stating the good news and taking credit for it, the President then lists the bad news and begins to blame others for it. Mr. Hanson reminds us, “In the new math, not having one month below 7.8 percent unemployment (in comparison with the prior administration’s not having one month above that figure) means after “shedding jobs for more than ten years, our manufacturers have added 500,000 jobs over the past three.” Adding some jobs matters; losing more of them doesn’t.”
2. President Obama engaged in his usual class warfare again reminding us of Warren Buffett‘s secretary, although not by name. I am tired of the President demonizing success in order to push his agenda. Enough is enough.
3. The speech was full of inaccuracies. Mr. Hanson sights one, “The Congress is responsible for sequestration rather than Obama who thought it up in the first place.” The Obama Administration has been repeating this lie for a while and will probably continue to do so.
4. The President blamed superstorm Sandy on climate change and used that as a premise to fund more Solyndras. Let’s talk about superstorm Sandy. By the time Sandy arrived in New York, it was a category 1 hurricane. Unfortunately, it was a very large, slow moving storm that hit a very densely populated area. That was the problem. We have had superstorms and severe hurricanes before–Hurricane Andrew in 1992 was a Category 4 and 5 hurricane when it hit Florida. “The Perfect Storm,” immortalized in the book and movie, occurred in 1991. We have had hurricanes and storms forever. One of the most devastating hurricanes ever to hit New England occurred in 1938. Actually, in recent years we have had fewer hurricanes–not more.
5. The last section of Mr. Hanson’s analysis of President Obama’s speech is called, “Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better.” It deals with the total lack of logic in some of the President’s statements. One problem was the President taking credit for increased gas and oil production while limiting gas and oil production on federal lands. Another was claiming that Al Qaeda was on the run. The article at National Review lists an entire array of illogical or dishonest claims of success.
Mr. Hanson concludes:
After five years of these soaring hope-and-change speeches, there are the same three themes I think will keep reverberating: Obama’s soaring rhetoric bears not much resemblance to the reality of the present tough times here and abroad; no one in the administration or the media will go back to see whether last year’s similar utopian ideas ever worked or even saw implementation; and the majority of listeners to the speech either probably believed every word — or were angry at anybody who did not.
Hopefully Congress will be able to stop some of the more damaging ideas proposed in the President’s State of the Union address. Otherwise we can expect more unemployment and higher taxes for everyone who works.
