So, Obama was good, but is anyone surprised?
Screw the banks, spending freeze, go health care reform, etc. All good.
The real question was where was the other team?
Considering how famous Congressman Joe Wilson is, not to mention how well-funded his re-election campaign is, how were there not dozens of Republicans yelling “you lie!” or “my ass!” or “die commie!” from all corners of congress? Where is all this vehement opposition to the Administration and congressional Democrats we’ve heard all about?
Not only were there no random exclamations, but the GOP actually made an effort to not to do anything interesting at all. There were barely any boos from their side at all. The closest thing to a protest was Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito muttering “not true” inaudibly to himself when Obama criticized the recent decision regarding political advertising by corporations (more on that later).
And how disappointing was the Republican response? Virginia’s new Governor did well to speak in front of a crowd to add some flair, but he LITERALLY SAID NOTHING. Amidst all the ridiculously cliche and meaningless statements about how bad things are bad and how doing good things is good and the generic “small government is good” and “government should be for the people,” the only statements of substance were those in which he agreed with Obama.
Of course, this isn’t a bad thing, at least for Obama, but I’m beginning to understand why conservatives are getting frustrated with the Republican party. With the country still generally preferring Democratic ideas over Republican ones, although the difference is much smaller than a year ago, the GOP is trying to posture itself as centrist (by American standards) to win back the independents it lost during the election. It’s working.
But the hard right hates Obama so much that this isn’t good enough for them. Maybe next year, the State of the Union address will be followed by a Republican Response followed by a TEA Party Response. Political junkies can only dream…
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On another note, I’d like to comment on last week’s US Supreme Court decision to repeal the law preventing corporations from paying for political advertising.
Most Canadians don’t realize exactly how many political commercials are already on Amercian Television during an election. I remember being in New Hampshire in December 2007 and seeing almost every commercial being for one of the Democratic candidates in the upcoming Presidential Primary.
It is possible to foresee the day that whichever political candidate sells himself or herself to the most large corporations will automatically win.
All this because of the absurd view that money is speech, and freedom to spend money to advertise something is a part of freedom of speech, which cannot be abridged.
This is completely false. The act of spending money isn’t speech. Also, a corporation like any person has every right to state a political opinion, but there’s a difference between stating something and broadcasting or advertising it. I can’t broadcast “obscene” language or visual content on television or radio in the US. People complain about their freedom of expression, but the FCC doesn’t care, because they think it’s bad for society. In Canada we outlaw hate speech, because we think it’s bad for society. Most people are more than fine with that.
Corporations running political dialogue is bad for society. Keep the law that stops it. Most people were and still are more than fine with it.
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