Republicans Caught in "State of Confusion" Address

First, let me say that I think President Barack Obama must have taken my advice from Tuesday's blog post and watched the press conference speech near the end of "The American President".

He had a bit of swagger in his voice, calling out Republicans, Democrats and even the Supreme Court! Now that was pretty unprecedented and while a bold move that he could have made pretty legitimately, it appears he stretched the truth a bit by claiming the Supreme Court decision on campaign finance would also enable foreign corporations to contribute without limits to political campaigns. He didn't say that the bill was dead and that he would come back with a more liberal one, but he did make it pretty clear that he has no intention to abandon the project.

There are many great analyses on the internet about the State of the Union address, but I wanted to address something that visually caught my eye.

Let me start by reminding everyone that "The duty of an Opposition is to Oppose" (Lord Randolph Churchill). In few cases is the physical representation of opposition more distinctive and seen by more people than the annual State of the Union address. So it is not surprising that when a president sprinkles in accomplishments of his administration in the address, that the opposition party remains seated and seemingly bored while the President's party stands, applauds, hoots and howls.

While President Obama's speech was filled with verbal pats on the back as well as barbs at the Republicans, there were also several things mentioned that Republicans do support. Some were olive branch offerings. These tend to be telegraphed and the opposition party knows to stand up and applaud.

However, there were also several items that given the way they were worded, it is difficult to be opposed to them. In many cases, the Republicans continued to remain seated. Near the end, they seemed to realize that President Obama was giving his party several video opps for the Republicans showing that they are not supporting things that most Americans would want.

I can envision a junior Republican senator, seated in the back of the Republican Senate section, trying to take his or her ques from what the rest of their group was doing:

"...To recover the rest, I've proposed a fee on the biggest banks..."

OK, we don't want to look like we are in favor of anything the President has done on the bailout, so I should remain seated. Wait, shouldn't I want to get money back from the banks? None of the other Republican senators is standing an applauding, so I guess I will stay seated.

"...We cut taxes for 95 percent of working families..."

Nope we don't believe that even if it winds up being true.

"...We cut taxes for small businesses..."

Oops, aren't we supposed to be in favor of small business? Nobody's standing.

"...We cut taxes for 8 million Americans paying for college..."

OK, yeah, oops, nobody is standing, better sit down again. We aren't in favor of helping Americans pay for college?

"...thought I'd get some applause on that one..."

Yeah, I think we missed standing on that one.

"...So tonight, I'm proposing that we take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat..."

Ah, that sounds good to me, but we aren't standing.

"...I'm also proposing a new small business tax credit -– one that will go to over one million small businesses who hire new workers or raise wages..."

Hey, aren't we supposed to be in favor of small business? Not sure why none of us are standing, but I'm not going to be the only one. I'll just sit and wait.

(on health care) "...Small business owners will continue to drop coverage altogether. I will not walk away from these Americans, and neither should the people in this chamber..."

We don't applaud anything having to do with Obama's Health Care plan. Wait, he actually said we won't walk away from Americans in need. Umm, I think we actually agree with him. Wait, there, a few Republicans are starting to haltingly stand up. I think I should too, maybe, yeah, the row behind them stood up, OK, I guess we are standing up and applauding on this one.

Boy is it confusing to be a member of the opposing party during a State of the Union address.