A Scolding State of the Union

Until his peroration "to start anew, to carry the dream forward, and to strengthen our union once more," the President spent more than an hour last night calling out everyone in the chamber, including himself, for "a difficult year." Congressional Republicans, Democrats, even the Supreme Court came in for their share of scolding.

The unusual tone of this State of the Union came from both directions. Below each outburst of applause, there was an unprecedented hum of disapproval from stony GOP faces.

"Throughout the raucous House chamber," the New York Times reports, "scattered boos echoed in the air."

As the Times and Washington Post lead off with his assertion that "We face a deficit of trust," there is Barack Obama's acceptance of the fact that the Washington political atmosphere has turned toxic and his literal pivoting from health care to jobs and the economy as the main issue, along with a figurative shift from bipartisan outreach to bare-knuckles conflict in his political stance.

"At the beginning of the last decade, the year 2000," he said, (noting that he was "just stating the facts"), "America had a budget surplus of over $200 billion. By the time I took office, we had a one-year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade.

"Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program. On top of that, the effects of the recession put a $3 trillion hole in our budget. All this was before I walked in the door...

"Now, even after paying for what we spent on my watch, we'll still face the massive deficit we had when I took office."

Outlining his spending freeze and other efforts at deficit reduction, the President noted that the Senate had blocked his effort to empower a bipartisan fiscal commission but promised to create one by executive order and clamp down on lobbyists who stand in the way.

The Supreme Court justices seated in front of him came in for their share of tongue-lashing for their decision last week that "reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests--including foreign corporations--to spend without limit in our elections" as he promised corrective legislation.

The President finished his scolding SOTU by observing that "what frustrates the American people is a Washington where every day is Election Day. We can't wage a perpetual campaign where the only goal is to see who can get the most embarrassing headlines about the other side-–a belief that if you lose, I win. Neither party should delay or obstruct every single bill just because they can. I'm speaking to both parties now...

"Washington may think that saying anything about the other side, no matter how false, no matter how malicious, is just part of the game. But it's precisely such politics that has stopped either party from helping the American people. Worse yet, it's sowing further division among our citizens, further distrust in our government."

But as long as opinion polls show that such behavior is working in their favor, how many members of Congress will stop doing just that?

One-Word State of the Union

A Gallup poll confirms that rank-and-file GOP members have followed their leaders in saying "no" to Barack Obama with the widest gap in approval ratings by party for any first-year president in history, 23 percent against 65 for Democrats.

Obama, who started as a wannabe conciliator, faces his first State of the Union with a one-word reality: fractured. Now, the White House is signaling a new fighting tone both in the words of the President and those around him.

David Plouffe, his campaign manager who has just come aboard as an adviser, writes in an OpEd: "Instead of fearing what may happen, let's prove that we have more than just the brains to govern--that we have the guts to govern."

The President spent the best part of his first year wooing "reasonable" Republicans (an oxymoron, it turned out) and getting a near-zero for his pains on every major initiative. It soon became clear that the opposition had seceded from the legislative process as surely as the South had from the Union in the Civil War--that debating policy differences now was as futile as trying to compromise on slavery then.

The loss of Ted Kennedy's seat may serve to rally the Administration like the firing on Ft. Sumter, as Obama pivots his focus from health care to “critical areas where middle-class families need a helping hand to get ahead,” as a White House leaker puts it.

Obama haters, who see him as a two-dimensional advocate for big-government tax-and-spending, may be in for a surprise as, in his flexible deliberative process, he shows signs of recognizing first-year mistakes and now turns for advice to, among others, such gray sages as Paul Volcker, Colin Powell and Warren Buffett.

Even the Wall Street Journal seems edgy about the stereotype, noting that "White House Toughens Tone" as the President gets serious about cutting the budget deficit, backing a bipartisan effort to study ways of doing it.

The state of the union at the moment may be fractured, but a battered Barack Obama may be getting fractious about dealing with it.

Playing President

In last night's Theater of the Absurd, a Lame Duck is quacking at the podium while the ducklings-in-waiting look on, pretending to listen before they waddle out for their turn on the TV stage.

You could have watched the President's last State of the Union address with the sound off and not turned it up as his would-be successors did their predictable soliloquies--Hillary Clinton with a smile as tight as duct tape, dodging questions about Bill; Barack Obama modestly insisting he's no JFK but basking in his Kennedy aura for the day; Mitt Romney mouthing "Washington is broken" platitudes followed by non-sequiturs that Harold Pinter would not have dared to write.

On his way out, George W. Bush is besieged by legislators holding out their programs to be autographed for some e-Bay auction years from now on another planet.

For a coda, a nice-looking schoolteacher named Kathleen Sebelius comes out to review the production by lecturing the "political pundits" before they review it and "obsess over the reactions of members of Congress: 'How many times was the President interrupted by applause? Did Republicans stand? Did Democrats sit?' And the rest of us will roll our eyes and think, 'What in the world does any of that have to do with me?'"

This Washington revival does ample justice to the definition of Theater of the Absurd as "broad comedy, often similar to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism."

Now the actors are off to tour the hinterlands for audiences who will watch with as much puzzlement as they did last night, if they stayed awake for the whole production.

White Noise for the White House

If he doesn't make it to the Oval Office, Mitt Romney can be marketed as a cure for insomnia. His flow of robotic rationalizations for past positions on "Meet the Press" today was enough to induce a stupor in any listener trying to connect them with reality.

Ask Romney the time of day, and he'll give you a rundown on his past experiences with timepieces from hourglasses on, how it all depends on where you are and tell you he's willing to let the states decide the time wherever you happen to be.

Except for the jarring commercial breaks, Romney was a white-noise machine to lull voters into believing that, if he gets to be president, we can all settle into a four-year nap. Side by side, he makes Fred Thompson look like a firebrand.

Romney did detour from unctuous smarm long enough to take a listless swipe at Mike Huckabee for criticizing Bush's conduct of the war in Iraq, but his heart clearly wasn't in it.

If he makes it, we can tune out during State of the Union speeches and stare at his hair.