Words, no actions
Obama still speaks as if he is the candidate, not president
President Barack Obama's State of the Union address was full of promise - and that was the trouble. Half way through his four-year term, the president is still speaking as if he is the candidate, still using the undoubted power of his rhetoric to inspire, still calling for change, when he already has the power to make those changes happen.
His instancing of the plethora of US government agencies that share responsibility for the same questions was a classic example. Three years ago on the campaign trail, he was promising better, more efficient government. Suddenly, midterm, he seems to have woken up to the fact that he has not yet begun to make it happen.
Obama, obstructed by his own Democrat Party has finally got health care reform through Congress. The START II nuclear arms limitation deal with Russia has at last been passed. The US has almost got out the last of its troops out of Iraq. But after 24 months in power, the president has precious little more to show for his leadership.
Where, for instance, is any tangible advance on his Cairo speech, which seemed at that moment to be a break with Washington's blinkered and partial approach to a just settlement for the Palestinians?
On this showing, it is therefore sad to reflect that his powerful delivery of the State of the Union address is yet another glittering parade of words, the promise of which is unlikely to be delivered. The president looks to be a born challenger but not perhaps a born leader.
He spoke of cutting $400 billion from US government expenditure in the next 10 years in order to rein in the burgeoning deficit. But at the same time, he was promising to rebuild the country's crumbling infrastructure. While some of this new investment will come from the private sector, much will be from the US taxpayers. Cutting out wasteful duplication in federal agencies is not going to claw back more than a few billion. Obama, therefore, cannot cut and spend at the same time, however emotionally he expresses the need to invest in school kids and innovation.
The danger has to be that he will cut the low-hanging fruit of foreign aid, perhaps under pressure from the now Republican-dominated House of Representatives. That could impact on the Middle East with decreases in US financial support to countries such as Egypt and Iraq, the latter struggling to rebuild from the devastation caused by the American invasion and occupation. The only Middle East country unlikely to experience cuts in US financial support will, of course, be Israel, proving once again that Washington has no concept of how damaging to its reputation is the impact of its uneven policies toward Arabs and Israelis.
This was a State of the Union address which unfortunately drove home to all who heard it, both at home and abroad, the disappointment that currently surrounds this president who, when he made his bid for the White House, talked the talk but so far has not demonstrated that he can walk the walk.