I’ve been a pretty light Twitter user, all in all, but last night I decided to try “live tweeting” President Obama’s State of the Union speech, for the fun of it. And I figured I may as well recycle all of those stunning bon mots for this little piece on the subject today.

Twitter is of-course a cross-platform communication and social networking application which limits users to no more than 140 characters per “tweet.”

Before the speech began, I took note of someone I observed in the audience:

Police officer who shot Fort Hood jihadist is with Michelle Obama.

Perhaps the Flying Dutchman is in the house as well?

President can then say, “Here’s my Homeland Security team!”

In the event, and honestly to my great surprise, in the course of his 70 minute prime time TV event, President Obama never introduced Sgt. Kimberly Munley, so never giving her the chance to receive an ovation from the senators and congressmen/women. (It would have been the only truly deserved ovation of the night, of-course. Could the possibility of people noticing that stark contrast be the reason Obama didn’t go for it? Beats me.)

As the president began blowing his own trumpet on how many jobs were “saved” by him during his first year in office, I commented:

Voters watching [are] saying, “You’re telling us what a great job you’ve done in the past year with jobs?!!”

As he promoted one of his inspiring plans for rebuilding America’s economy, I tweeted:

I love trains, but high speed railroad in FLORIDA? I can see the lines forming at the ticket office now. NOT.

Ah, wit.

Today, by the way, in the wake of this speech, I decided to put together a proposal for a high speed railroad line in Wyoming. I figure, even it turns out not to be feasible, I can bill the federal government for millions in research money. A mere drop in the bucket, after all.

His appeal to Global Warming skeptics to support investment in “green” jobs and energy on a purely pragmatic basis was amusing to me.

“Even if you doubt the evidence …” and think Global Warming is a crock, it’s smart to spend billions on it! The logic of Barack.

In beginning to talk about health care, President Obama told us how thousands of Americans would have lost their health insurance by the time he’d finished speaking (no kidding) and how millions more would lose their health insurance this year. There was only one possible retort to that.

Because they’re losing their JOBS.

Duh, as they say. Which just underlines what voters told Obama and Washington generally in the Massachusetts election, and continue to say in polls: Address the economic crisis first. But Obama has really still not heard that message. The recession to him was always just an opportunity to put his grander ideological plans into motion. He figured it would take care of itself in a cyclical way, like average recessions do, and he could take credit for the improvement regardless of what policies he actually implemented. But this was never an average recession. (See David P. Goldman’s article today for an angle on that.)

Post-partisan, bi-partisan, ambi-partisan; Obama was eager to refluff his credentials in that area last night.

“But if anyone has a better approach, let me know …” and Pelosi, Reid and I will disregard it with our usual equanimity.

Remember, after all: We won. Right?

Bipartisan, as he mocks “our friends on the Right.”

Great idea! Let’s stop all this partisanship, and let’s just ALL become dyed-in-the-wool big government liberals!

He continues to talk about “changing the tone” after explicitly dismissing Repub. ideas and blaming Repub. prez over and over again.

Later, as he started to talk about terrorism and his approach to it, he said what seemed to me to be an amazingly ironic thing.

“I’m not interested in re-litigating the past.” Except when it comes to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his friends.

KSM was well on his way to conviction and execution when Eric Holder decided to “re-litigate the past.”

It’s looking more and more like the legislative branch will stop the Obama administration from trying Khalid and his chums in New York City. (Please God.) If they do, Obama should get on his knees and thank them. The potential spectacle of those trials — which would cost a billion dollars and up over the years during which they can be expected to drag on — constitutes a sword of Damocles hanging over Obama’s presidency (as if he doesn’t have enough of those already). Nice job, Eric.

As President Obama last night assured us that all U.S. combat troops would be withdrawn from Iraq by August of this year, I was, well, bemused.

Did he just announce that we won the war in Iraq?

Make of it what you will, I guess. (What about paying tribute to the success of our armed forces, and their incredible sacrifices in the process? I suppose that would be jingoistic, and might risk someone inferring that the previous president was not entirely wrong about something.)

And so the speech — which, if Obama truly were a political genius, would have been almost entirely about jobs — just went on, and on, and on.

TOO long. Voters wanting to hear about jobs have had it up to HERE with talk of gays in the military and platitudes to the nth degree.

As he tried to address the gap between his followers’ expectations and what he has actually achieved, I tried to paraphrase him in Tweet-format as best I could.

Change is really, really hard.

Change is really, really, really, really hard.

I counted six instances during the speech in which he blamed George W. Bush and Republicans, whether obliquely or fairly explicitly, for his trouble. However, my attention was not held every minute, so it’s quite possible I missed some.

In the end, I tried to summarize my overall reaction within the sacred 140 character limit:

Review? Weak on substance, directionless. Delivery: Irritating to voters who have seen too much of him and just don’t buy it anymore.

I see no reason to revise that opinion today, with any number of characters at my disposal.

…

On a related note, Professor Cornel West of Princeton University recently supplied a videotaped “Note to Obama” to the BBC, marking the first anniversary of President Obama’s inauguration. Now, I’m sure that I’d have quite a few areas of political disagreement with Professor West, in terms of specific prescriptions for improving the prosperity of the American working and middle-classes, but I have to agree spiritually with how he opens his “Note to Obama.” It goes like this (you can watch at this link):

My dear brother President Barack Obama [...] I must say, despite your brilliance, despite your charisma, I’m disappointed when it comes to the fundamental question, which is a question of priorities, a question of urgency. How deep is your love for poor and working people? [...] Your economic team has little or no concern for poor and working people. Job creation is an afterthought! You say the recession is over, but 10.2 percent of our precious citizens are still unemployed and many of those have given up on working! How deep is your love for poor and working people?

I think Professor West is definitely on to something, in not feeling that love — something which the voters have also perceived. President Obama has little real concern for the troubles of the ordinary American people: the poor, the working, the middle-class, all of whom have been suffering from an economy trapped in a death-spiral, while he has been busy pursuing his ideological imperatives; largely, his plan to remake America by getting the hands of the federal government around the U.S. healthcare system, but also his “cap and trade” plan for increasing energy prices in the name of “climate-change” and the genuinely heartless and reckless way in which he allowed Democratic lawmakers to spend 862 billion dollars (and counting) on a “stimulus” bill of favored pork which was clearly not going to really stimulate the economy. As mentioned already, he simply assumed that the economy would come back of its own accord, and that he could then take credit for it.

That, it seems, is how much he deeply cares about the poor and the ordinary working people of the country. Actions, after all, speak louder than words. The voters now have a year of actions, and absence of actions, on which to judge this president who assumed the office having achieved so little else of real substance in his public life.

Last night’s speech was that of a man trying to save his presidency; it was not that of a president trying urgently to save the economy. And I think it will be perceived by most voters in precisely that way — to the extent that they are wasting their time thinking about it at all.

Related Posts:

• Obama-English dictionary
• GOP presidential campaign notes (10/27/2011)

From section: Commentary, Politics / 3 Comments »