President Obama, Man of Action

President Barack Obama addresses the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference in Williamsburg, Virginia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the last real year of effective leadership before settling into lame-duckdom (a point bolstered by the appearance of one of the members of the "Duck Dynasty" clan), President Barack Obama used his State of the Union address to tell Congress and the country that the time for partisan bickering has passed.  It is now his way or the highway.

Obama's status has eroded as the years go by and people start wondering why the economy has been improving by leaps and bounds, but their lives haven't.  Only 43 percent now believe the President is doing a good job.  But three million have now enrolled on the government's health care website, which is not as problem-plagued as it once was.  So that's a plus.

Positioning himself as a man of action, Obama said he would go around Congress if necessary if they do not agree to some of his plans to improve the lot of struggling Americans.  Such as increasing the minimum wage for some government workers, closing the gaps on income inequality and asking the GOP not to refight Obamacare.  Otherwise, it was the usual laundry list of proposals that sound good on paper, but have no realistic chance of getting past a Republican-dominated Congress.

The President was also forceful in his declaration that climate change is a fact, and not just a theory.  Perhaps he was influenced by the national cold wave that was going on, and that snow flurries were flying in Washington as he spoke.  Or that California has yet to have rain this year.

The President also said the country must get off of the war footing that has been more or less permanent since George W. Bush was in office.  In this, the (supposedly) final year of American combat in Afghanistan, Obama said he was reducing his dependence on drones and called on Congress to close down the Guantanamo Bay prison.

But all that was undercut when the President introduced another one of those so-called "wounded warriors" (whose name will go unmentioned here) who sacrificed life and limb in Afghanistan while the rest of the country had long ago checked out of the war, believing that he was making America safe for freedom and democracy when he did nothing of the sort.  For that, he got the biggest applause of the evening from a hero-worshipping House Chamber.

The State of the Union address took more than an hour to deliver, with 15 minutes figured in for applause breaks, according to ABC News.  President Obama did his part.  Now he has to convince Congress, in a midterm election year, that he really meant what he said about using the power of the Presidency for the good of ordinary folks.  Otherwise, all that "man of action" stuff belongs in the comic books.