A Blown Opportunity

As an American I am rooting for my country to succeed.. I'm not super patriotic; I simply care about my neighbors, my country, and the best parts of what America represents. I believe most of us do. If we are to succeed, we must still share this common love and care for our homes and country.

Because of this, I was rooting for Barack Obama on Tuesday, during his "State of the Union" address. I was disappointed, mostly. Barack should have come into that speech with one mission, one purpose only. Obama should have proved he was a true leader, worthy of being reelected and admired. He campaigned instead. 

America has faced enormous economic pressure, nearly disaster, in 2011. We've also seen the people of America growing increasingly frustrated with a seemingly impotent congress, and a broken political process.  Facing this deeply divided congress and senate, which reflects a divided country, Obama's one mission should have been to unite us around the few values we still share—the values that shape America.

We need a leader who can inspire us. We need a vision-caster. Not a vision for one party, or for a new model of compromise. Vision for a nation facing hard times. We need someone to tell it straight, like it is, and inspire every one of us to fight for a better tomorrow. We need words bathed in the light of our history, soaked with wisdom, and fired with the fervency of a believer. 

Instead Obama sold his policies and task forces to the nation on Tuesday, and that was a poor substitute for brilliant leadership. 

To be fair, he did raise above this political-hucksterism on several occasions. He did well to call congress to look for small solutions to create a more efficient government. This is a truly nonpartisan call to arms, while admitting each side's differences. The last several minutes of his speech were also very good. And he may have said more great words in the portions of the speech I missed.

But if Barack's speech would have been cut to the last two minutes of the speech he gave, it would have been much better. How many people have truly been inspired by a speech stretching well past an hour? If Lincoln delivered the most famous speech in American history in just over two minutes, how much more do we need leaders who can speak so poignantly and pointedly today? This is the generation of YouTube, and two minutes is long. Only pastors and dull politicians address the nation for over an hour. If this be a drastic part from tradition, so be it; the times call for drastic measures.