Here's what has to be understood. It's all about him.
Watch some of the highlights from President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech. Photo: Getty Images.
A State of the Union speech normally is about relating a president's public policies to conditions in the country. AnObama State of the Union speech is about one thing: the Obama project.
It would be unfair to say that everything and everyone else in a complex world are irrelevant. But let's be clear about the priorities: Congress, the Cabinet of courtiers, the press, the people and indeed the national problems described in that State of the Union speech—it's all brick and mortar in the future Obama monument.
That we are all just riding in Barack Obama's sidecar should have been obvious from day one. His 2008 Denver acceptance speech enveloped nearly everything. The vast, sweeping goals he then laid out in January 2009 are virtually the same ones he described Tuesday night—the climate cleansed, education for all, social justice achieved and the drowning middle-class saved.
The Washington Post's Ezra Klein, an Obama admirer, commented without irony right after the State of the Union: "In some ways, what was most noticeable about the speech was what wasn't in it: Nothing."
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