The State of the Union address can have offended or challenged no one, writes LARA MARLOWEin Washington
WHAT HAVE they done to Barack Obama? The president’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night was well-delivered and well-received, but careful and safe to the point of blandness. Except for pin-prick stabs at subsidies for petroleum companies and tax cuts for the rich, it contained absolutely nothing that risked offending anyone.
The president’s central argument – that the government must fund research and education if America is to compete with China and the rest of the world – was so sugar-coated in concessions to conservatives that it risked being lost.
“We have to make America the best place on earth to do business,” Obama said, announcing that he would lower the 35 per cent corporate tax rate. When he promised to veto any Bill containing “earmarks” – pet projects for congressional districts – Senator John McCain, Obama’s rival in the 2008 presidential race, jumped to his feet and applauded.
There were other sops to conservatives: rescinding a business tax form required by the healthcare Bill; opening campuses to military recruiters. Obama congratulated Speaker John Boehner and the 112th Congress, with its Republican majority in the house.
The president included Boehner in his ode to the American Dream, noting that the speaker “began by sweeping the floors of his father’s Cincinnati bar”. True to his reputation as “weeper of the House”, Boehner teared up.
Obama took bipartisanship so far as to borrow his catchiest phrases from Republicans. “Winning the Future”, which could have been the title of Obama’s address, is a book by the Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich.
“We do big things,” another phrase repeated by Obama, was used by the Republican governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie.
Add to this the fact that Obama had used the “Sputnik moment” analogy and his exhortation to “out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the word” on previous occasions, and the State of the Union had a stale, rehearsed feel to it.
Obama might have made the rampage that killed six people, including a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl, on January 8th, what he calls “a teachable moment”.
If ever there was a case for gun control, Tucson was it. The word “guns” did not pass the presidential lips.
But the effect of the mass shooting was palpable. An armchair was left empty in honour of Gabrielle Giffords, the representative from Arizona who is making an astonishing recovery after being shot through the brain.
Members of Congress wore the black and white ribbon loop that has become the symbol of mourning and hope for civil peace in the wake of the killings. First Lady Michelle Obama sat with the family of Christina Taylor Green, the slain schoolgirl, and the congressional aide and surgeon who saved Giffords’s life.
In his previous State of the Union address, Obama argued for healthcare reform, an end to military discrimination against gays and ratification of the arms control treaty with Russia. Tuesday night’s speech was long on lofty rhetoric and short on specifics.
The atmosphere was more subdued than last year, when a Republican representative shouted “You lie!” In response to the Tucson killings, the bipartisan think tank Third Way appealed to members of Congress to adopt mixed seating for the address, which made for a less hostile environment. The session was dubbed “date night” as representatives and senators sent tweets and texts asking opponents to sit with them.
Foreign policy got short shrift. Obama failed to mention the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the second year in a row. He noted that he would this year complete the withdrawal from Iraq and begin pulling troops out of Afghanistan. Both statements won applause, as did his promise that “We will not relent, we will not waver, and we will defeat [al-Qaeda].” No one seemed to notice a contradiction.
Perhaps the biggest nod to the right was the amount of time Obama devoted to American exceptionalism, a belief he is often accused of lacking. The US is “not just a place on a map, but a light to the world”, he said at the outset. Later, he won cheers and a standing ovation when he said: “There isn’t a person here who would trade places with any other nation on Earth.”