Opinion: Obama’s speech--the task at hand
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It’s his first prime time address to Congress, but strictly speaking, President Obama’s speech, which is slated to begin at 6:01 p.m. PT, is not a State of the Union address. Why this is so isn’t entirely clear to your blogger (who just read the U.S. Constitution on the point), but that’s what the pundits are saying and that’s what we’re going to go with.
In any case, not calling it a State of the Union has allowed wags to dub it the ‘Fate of the Union’ speech, since things are so dreary, despite Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s relatively upbeat remarks today to Congress. (He said policymakers do not plan to nationalize the banks and that it’s possible the economic recovery could get underway by 2010. The Dow rewarded him for allaying its perma-jitters by jumping 236 points.)
The president has a daunting, Rooseveltian, task this evening. (FDR, that is.) He will attempt to reassure Americans--including Congress--that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s not an oncoming train (rimshot, please).
As presidents do, he will be speaking somewhat over the heads of his physical audience--100 senators, 435 representatives, the vice president and assorted above-average guests, including several he will give a shout-out to in his speech--and beam as much gravitas and optimism as he can muster about country’s future into its living rooms.
We’ll be watching and live blogging as the evening unfurls, including the Republican response by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. The clothes won’t be as nice as they were Sunday night at the Oscars, but the show will be shorter and the stakes a little higher. Stay tuned....
-- Robin Abcarian
The dome of the U.S. Capitol building is lit in the evening hours of February 24, 2009 in Washington, DC. U.S. President Barack Obama will address a joint session of the Congress at 9:01pm tonight where he plans to address the topics of the struggling U.S. economy, the budget deficit, and health care.
