My state of the union fantasy

What I was hoping for is that Obama would get up there and say – the state of our union is absolute crap.  And here’s why.  (He then starts pointing to individual senators)  You’re a jerk.  You’re a jerk.  You’re a jerk.  (He searches in the audience until he finds who he is looking for) You’re a jerk.  Oh, and you’re a total douchebag (pointing at Lieberman).   Obviously that didn’t happen.  But it would have been awesome if it had.  The one positive note, aside from Florida getting some of the high-speed rail funds, was that he did not say, “The state of our union is strong.”  It clearly isn’t and it would have been really annoying if he had lied to us about that.  I think his ending struck the right tone when he said we have it within ourselves to be strong again.  Now we just need to figure out a way to bypass the Senate. 

The Republican response was a bit surreal for me.  On the plus side the guy didn’t say anything obviously stupid.  He kept strictly to generalities so he couldn’t get anything wrong. On the other hand almost everything he said we should do was part of Obama’s agenda. No real comparison between the parties was drawn which make me wonder why they are blocking EVERYTHING in the Senate when they so clearly agree with Obama on many things.  Anyway, the thing that weirded me out and made the whole GOP response a bit surreal was the crowd.  They looked enraptured which was a bit much given this was a ho hum response.  Perhaps if I knew who the guy was and why the women there looked as if they were on the verge of tears of joy from being allowed to be in this man’s presence, it would have made more sense.  As it was, it looked as if he were cultivating a cult of personality. Hopefully, that won’t become the norm.  ‘

Finally, is it asking too much of an IL politician to be, well, you know an IL politician? Play tough Obama.  That’s why we elected you.  You’re from IL.  We kind of expected you to be able to play rough with a smile on your face. I know you campaigned on changing in the tone in Washington. But we didn't think you meant it. What we thought you meant was that you were going to get things done despite the status of things in Washington. Changing the tone means actually getting something done!