Two Thoughts About the State of the Union Address

First of all, there's a bit of a meme going around that says that Obama didn't mention global warming as a problem. Okay. He did not speak the words "global warming," or even "climate change." But he did spend a lot of time talking about renewable energy, and called for 85% renewables by 2035. And he explicitly said that these policies would, among other things, "protect our planet." That, to me, sounds like he "mentioned climate change." No, he didn't focus on it. What would focusing on it accomplish? Nothing more would get done, and given that the economy still sucks and it's winter, and a cold winter at that, it's not a great time to make a big point of focusing on something other than jobs jobs jobs. If people want to engage in a genuine debate about whether he should have emphasized climate change more, that's fine, although I think that I probably disagree. But to claim that he didn't mention it strikes me as fraudulent.

Second, someone (possible Jon Chait) commented that Obama took a well-hackneyed theme, "the future," and managed to weave it into all his various policy ideas. Yeah, he did. That's because his broad and seemingly varied agenda does in fact have a common theme, that of building a new foundation for American greatness. Or, as he put it, winning the future. I've been saying this for years, and I'm very pleased that Obama figured out that he has a theme, and a very "American exceptionalist" pride-inducing theme to boot, and that he should trumpet it as loud as he can. I wish his people had used the phrase New Foundation, because I think it's a perfect tag-line in the style of the agendas of Teddy Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson. But this was good enough.

(Oh, I liked the speech. Could you tell?)