State of the Union 2010

President Obama gave his second State of the Union address last Wednesday. My comments are going to focus exclusively on the delivery of the speech itself. Overall, I was disappointed. Obama is normally an excellent orator and I was expecting more.

Obama took the unusual step of not including a sentence starting with “The state of the union is…” I think this was wise, under the present circumstances. The problem with that sentence is that when times are bad, there is no way to finish the sentence to soften the blow. Instead, he chose the phrase “I have never been more hopeful about America’s future than I am tonight.” It projected optimism without seeming out-of-touch, and was a strong opening to his speech.

The low point of his speech came early on. Some members of Congress were clearly not impressed that Obama's proposed spending freeze wouldn't begin until the following year, leading him to ad lib the remark “That’s how the budget works.” I thought it came across as patronizing, and I'm sure he regretted saying it. While extemporaneous comments can sometimes be useful, the SOTU is not the best format for this.

I thought the health care section was surprisingly weak. He waited until 35 minutes into the speech to mention it. I’m not sure it was wise to bury his signature issue deep within the speech. It sends the message (fairly or not) that the issue is no longer a top priority for him.

The conclusion of his speech was his best moment. One of the most annoying things about SOTU addresses is that the flow of the speech is constantly interrupted by frequent applause. Obama delivered his conclusion in a way that kept the applause to a minimum, allowing him to build up to a crescendo ending in thunderous applause. It was a strong ending to an otherwise mediocre speech.

-Jon