Regardless of President Obama's bromides and happy assurances to the contrary, the State of the Union is not strong. The steady decline of this great republic is a real possibility. "We must somehow defend ourselves, as if we were arraigned on a capital charge," Cicero said.
Tonight's State of the Union address will focus on domestic issues. This is understandable, as we've got plenty of problems at home that we can address and over which we have some measure of control.
Why wait for the president's speech? If you want to know his theme -- and it's hardly a surprise -- just glance at the quintessential Beltway pre-spin transaction: White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer's "exclusive" preview feed to Mike Allen's "Playbook." According to Pfeiffer, President Barack Obama is going to ... champion the middle class, which, Pfeiffer points out, his boss has done consistently since he began running for the highest office in the land back in 2007. That's true. I was there. Obama always has cited improving the economic lot of the middle class as a central purpose. So has every other politician in modern times. But as Obama prepares to deliver his latest State of the Union address, the issue isn't rhetoric -- it's results. And while the words are there, the results, to be blunt, are not.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has ruled out Social Security cuts in any plan to replace the sequester. President Obama, on the other hand, remains willing to offer the chained CPI Social Security cut as part of a grand bargain.
Under existing authority, the President can execute one simple policy that would create 2.2 to 4.7 million jobs over the next three years: End currency manipulation by a handful of countries, especially China.
By the standards of slaughter in Vietnam, the deaths caused by drones are hardly a bleep on the consciousness of official Washington. But we have to wonder if each innocent killed doesn't give rise to second thoughts by those judges who prematurely handed our president the Nobel Prize for Peace.
I never knew my grandparents, but I am living their American Dream.
I firmly believe that at some point during his second administration President Obama is going to address the issue of mass incarceration in America. What I fear is that he is going to wait so long, and ultimately do so with such caution, as to minimize his potential impact.
If you ever wonder what diplomats do or whether a policy goal on an issue like LGBT equality of a U.S. president matters in countries beyond our shores, wonder no more.
As the nation tunes in to hear him chart a path for our nation's prosperity, there are three policy prescriptions the President has already endorsed that, if fully implemented, could provide hope for growing the economy in the near-term.
Mr. President, in tonight's speech, focus on jobs. Urge Congress to abandon policies that we know will shrink our economy, and present a plan for putting America back to work.
Congress used to take the president a lot more seriously, which is a tradition that seems ripe for revival.
Rubio has an opportunity to do much more than mend fences for the Republicans. He has an historic chance to show he is not a merely a politician tasked by party elders to reach out to a disgruntled constituency, but a statesman.
President Obama is going to speak about the economy and foreign policy and many other issues, and a large number of citizens listening and watching will interpret the State of the Union address through a prism of the affective forecasting bias.
The State of the Union is the president's first big opportunity to retrain our nation's focus on economic prosperity instead of austerity.
The remedy for losing one's proposals is to win a majority for them in the next election, not taking the American people hostage.