For my regular followers and visitors, I took a short break from blogging but I didn't stop listening and learning during a fascinating week in politics.
Sarah Vowell, author and NPR contributor, once said around the end of the Bush administration that she returned to the Roosevelt Fireside chats to find some comfort and reassurance during our country's uncertain times and seemingly vacant leadership. Wednesday night, an estimated 48 million people watched the State of the Union (SOTU) address and saw Barack Obama take command of the room to become the President of the United States. He is our educator-in-chief. He addressed not only the real problems but the faux outrages as well. He was concise in his message so that even the least informed among us (and Congress) could understand.
I got the same nervous jitters when President Obama called out the Supreme Court for their recent decision to basically treat corporations as individuals as I got when I watched Stephen Colbert realize Bush and company were not amused at the annual correspondents' dinner a few years back. My thought was can he
do that? YES, he can!
Justice Stephens wrote this in his dissent, a more informed and elegant way of saying how I felt:
Corporations are not actually members of [our society]. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters. The financial resources, legal structure, and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about their role in the electoral process. Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races."
Read sentence three again. Here is something
real where the teabaggers (giggle) can focus their outrage.
Yet, even the SOTU address did not hold a candle to what happened on Friday when President Obama attended the House GOP retreat and engaged in an honest question and answer period - televised, no less. That may have been the most exciting exchange in politics I have witnessed, to date. One could surmise that the SOTU address fell on deaf ears, as the House GOP began by asking questions based on misleading information and the usual talking points.
Later on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow showed examples of house members attended and took credit for benefits received in their home districts that
they had voted against, just as President Obama pointed out to them. This was indeed the principal walking in to school a group of petulant children, who continued to sneer, chuckle, and draw a blank.
President Obama stated he had read the GOP proposals; if you will recall, the proposed GOP budget presented no numbers. You will recall, the GOP took a surplus and turned it into a major trillion-dollar deficit. You will recall, the GOP had eight years to do what they are now saying they want done in this administration. Now, they want to take the next eight years to prevent anyone else from doing anything, too. President Obama has had ONE YEAR to work on the problems created by the last administration.
As a former community organizer, this may be President Obama's toughest challenge yet. I don't think he will give up on them, but I suspect that into his second year he is going to leave those behind who do not want to follow his leadership. I also suspect he will surpass Carter and Clinton as an amazing statesman once he serves his time in office.
It is easier to repeat the old liberal/conservative rhetoric that we've heard for years than to take the time to listen and learn something new, or so it seems. Here is the opportunity for legislators to do something great and historical rather than becoming a historical laughingstock.
Many of you may recognize Christina Hendricks who plays Joan Holloway on AMC's hit series, Mad Men. She is ravishingly beautiful, isn't she? The Internet has been buzzing about a recent critique of her Golden Globes dress and the comment that you don't put a big woman in a big dress. I was pumping my fist initially. But, as Judy Berman wrote on Salon.com's Broadsheet, this reaction may be more about our learned negative reactions to the words "big" and "round" and "curvy" to assume it is a criticism. No one said "fat". Hendricks is tall at 5'8", yet still smaller than the average American female. What do you think?
