What would happen if you were put into a store that had everything you needed or wanted or could possibly use and were told just take what you need or want and the only thing you had to do was leave something of value there. Either something you made or grew or some service you can provide. No money or anything.

I've Been watching State of the Union Speeches since LBJ was President.  Never have any of them been so inadequate to the moment.

Our President and the rest of the leaders of our country have failed us all and miserably so.  Worse than everything else is how badly our elites are failing our children.

With the approaching SOTU speech by Obama I know some may wish to focus on specific policies said or not said.  But what I will find interesting to watch during this fundamentally pure political theater event is the theoritical framing which builds with his discourse.  

A Presidency can be about programs and policies. A Presidency can also be a story about a man and a journey.

The writer John Gardner claimed that there are two basic story forms -- "A Stranger comes to Town" and "We go on a Journey".

Taken as story President Obama's first two years in office overlooked both basic forms.

          
                  THE 40TH PRESIDENT OF THE USA

Several years ago I watched a comedian on the Comedy Channel describe Ronald Reagan thusly:

Ronald Reagan had as much to do with the Reagan Administration as a hood ornament on a 1956 Buick had with driving its owner to work.

 

In artappraiser's comment to Wolfrum's Keith Olbermann post, she links to the Times' contribution to the cover story.

Not to repeat my post on Comcast's necessary involvement, but had it actually been true that it had just stood on the sideline every Comcast shareholder would right now be on his way to his lawyer to sue them.  For negotiating an acquisition without the usual prohibition against cardinal changes prior to closing. 

Maybe the Speaker started something. If men are now allowed to cry in public, the one writing these words have certainly availed himself of this new privilege in the past two weeks. From hearing that Congresswoman Giffords had opened her eyes and the heroism of so many who allowed her to live, and saved as many lives as possible when her fears were realized and a young man who was so easily able to purchase a gun to kill her, to hearing again the first words I can recall having been spoken as a president was inaugurated, the tears have flown very freely.

It has been very difficult in these last few days to decide whether or not to respond to the House Republicans’ first major political initiative of 2011 – their introduction and passing of the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act. Why respond, when responding suggests that the initiative is sufficiently serious as to warrant a carefully crafted reaction? Why respond, and give the initiative a legitimacy it probably does not deserve? It has been very difficult to decide.