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The stunning news today of Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak stepping down has all but eclipsed the other political news of the week. Who would have thought, a month ago, that a government that had oppressed its own people for over three decades would fall simply because a bunch of people marched in the streets and refused to give up?
Corporate America is on our minds today, because President Obama just gave a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. With the future decidedly uncertain, Obama made overtures to the corporate community, and also called on them to be responsible and help build the middle class of this country, by insuring that all boats are lifted by the tide, and not get (as he put it) "left behind, stuck in the mud." This wasn't the only time in the speech he got Kennedyesque, also calling on the corporate titans to: "Ask yourselves what you can do to hire more American workers, what you can do to support the American economy and invest in this nation."
Obama poll-watchers have been waiting to see a "bump" upward in public opinion job approval ratings pretty much ever since he took office. In two years, there really hasn't been one. Until now.
But for now, let's take a quick look back at the week that was, and then spend the rest of the column examining the "narrative" of Obama's speech.
The day after President Obama's big yearly speech to Congress and the American people, most pundits and talking-head types in the media are vying to outdo each other on stating "what it all means" or similar high-flown overanalysis. What many of them seem to have missed, however, is the fact that Obama used his speech to introduce a few topics into the political debate. Some of these topics have been around for a while, championed by various people and groups, but what seems newsworthy to me is the fact that Obama included them in his list of proposals for the future.
I'd have to sum up my immediate reaction to tonight's State Of The Union speech with the old Monty Python line: ".... and now, for something completely different ..."
Well, it's that time of year again. The time of year when pundits across the land helpfully (oh, so helpfully) offer the president advice on what he should say in his "State Of The Union" speech tomorrow. While I've engaged in this sort of thing before, this year I'd like to make predictions of what President Obama will say tomorrow night (as opposed to what I would like him to say). Which means I'm not endorsing any of this personally, merely attempting to predict what will be in tomorrow night's speech in advance.
Obama's mojo has apparently returned, to some extent or another.
Sometimes it is hard to come up with a metaphor to describe the week that was. This was not one of those weeks.
President Barack Obama had a mildly good month in the polls during December. Not a fantastic month, mind you; maybe not even a great month... but a mildly good month, nonetheless.