State of the Union thoughts and reflections

I’ve had a lot of fun watching the conservatives pretty much lose their minds over President Obama’s State of the Union Address. And for some reason, they chose a rather unknown to deliver the GOP response.  Her message was pretty much the standard response, with God tossed in to make their fan base stand up and cheer. It kind of came off like an infomercial for a 1970’s greatest hits package.

 

But terrible setting for the response aside, I had to laugh at some of the GOP responses. Randy Weber, Republican, who tweets @TXRandy14 said “On the Floor, waiting for the Kommandant-inChief” he also ranted about Obama being a “Socialist”. Funny how that is always the refuge, to call someone a socialist. Roger Williams (@RepRWilliams) tweeted “Ignore the Constitution #SOTU. Did Williams somehow forget about Bush, who happily stripped away freedoms under the guise of protecting the American Citizenship from terrorist? The overwhelming majority of the NSA programs in effect today where put into place by Bush, many just infant programs circa 2005.

That aside, the conservatives are dusting off the corpse of Ronald Reagan as the standard bearer of the constitution loving president. Let’s examine the idea of Executive Action, which president Obama has said he will do in order to get his measures past to help the country. Ronald Reagan instituted 381 executive orders. That’s 47.6 per year over his eight year reign in office. At this rate, President Obama will finish with 114 fewer Executive Orders than Reagan. In fact, tor each Reagan’s numbers, President Obama would need a third term in office to outdo that number. For the record, President Obama at the time of this writing has a mere 167 orders. So, if Obama is a dictator, what the hell was Reagan? You won’t get any Republicans to answer that without them doing the Texas two-step around the question.

Listen; there are things I would have loved to hear throughout the State of the Union Address. I would love to have heard that there was going to be a fight to help veterans currently living in halfway houses or out on the streets. I would have loved to have heard that these men and women would be covered for life under a special insurance program. I would have enjoyed hearing that there was a plan to create more VA hospitals in rural areas to ease the burden of vets who live in these places. I would have loved to have heard President Obama push for more spending on education. President Obama has been handicapped by one of the most worthless congresses in American history. The only congress that comes to mind that is as bad as the Tea Party congress is the Congress from 1803. Many members of that congress, smarting from President Jefferson removing many of John Adams “Midnight appointees” decided they were going to make Jefferson’s life hell. And yes, while Jefferson had two terms in office, he wasn’t able to accomplish everything he wanted to do. They took to the press to do so, outing Jefferson’s affair with Sally Hemmings. They took after Jefferson with great gusto, much like their modern day counterparts have done today. Only instead of Federalist newspapers, they use their PR arm, a billion dollar Fox News network. See my friends, history really does repeat itself.

Now, from 2001-2008, anytime you spoke out against the President, called him a dictator, you got grilled in the press, you were considered un-American, or you were giving hope to terrorist. The Dixie Chicks said they weren’t proud of President Bush, and in an act of free speech repression (real free speech repression, not what Phil Robertson thrust upon himself) radio stations banned playing Dixie Chicks music, Country Music TV refused to play their videos, and with the Republican PR machine in full motion, the career of the band died. While Toby Keith, who took after them in the press, wrote generic anthems, and everyone flocked to him, purchasing his albums en masse.  MTV refused to play music videos from the heavy metal band Otep, whose song “Warhead” contained the verse, “He lies they die, keep the peasants terrified” in reference to Bush. Eminem released a song called Mosh before the 2004 election which as well mocked Bush, featuring the famous verse “Let him strap on an AK, Let him impress Daddy that way.”  MTV quickly pulled the song from rotation. All under the guise that you were not allowed to mock President Bush.

Now, flash forward a few years, and save for the songs, the GOP is using many tactics they were so against. And the fear they have tried to instill in people who lead to one of the greatest racial divides since before the civil rights movement of the 1960’s.  Thankfully, some people are seeing passed these parlor games, and hate mongers like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Michael Savage are seeing their ratings drop. Limbaugh and Beck have begun to lose radio outlets as a result.

So here we sit, and for the next two years, until the new president is elected, where going to hear more of this. And by the way, maybe it’s about time our media began to fact check both sides. It used to be the news was reported, no hyperbole, just the facts. Maybe it is time our media actually acted like the damn media, and stopped playing kiss ass.

That is all.