
It’s always a thrill to watch a heavy hitter knock the ball out of the park, as Obama did in his State of the Union speech last night. To me it was pure “Wow!” but pundits ordinarily ready to heap praise, Rachal Maddow, Chris Matthews, Reverend Al, seemed in shock. Their comments amounted to little more than, “Aw shucks!”
I found myself thinking of the first Obama vs. Romney debate, the one Romney “won,” wondering if despite winning the next two, Obama was once again showing us that that first had been a fluke.
Marco Rubio, putative rising young Republican star, offered a rebuttal like an infield pop-up fly out that ends the inning. He looked rumpled, a bit plump, and without his erstwhile mannikin gloss. His words came out in dry gulps, like he was comprehending them for the first time knowing that millions were listening, making his throat go dry. All he could do was snatch desperately across the screen for a plastic bottle of water. Didn’t help.
His so-called rebuttal ignored the state of the union to mix cranky complaints about Obama with don’t-tax-the-rich mumbo-jumbo that was hopeless even before it went stale. If it was Rubio’s chance to shine, he blew it.
Some Republicans certainly know by now that what caused their defeat at the polls was not some tactical oversight, or bad PR, or a demographic shift, but rotten policy. They’ve been wrong about everything and the public has gotten wise. I’d not be surprised to hear that Republican string-pullers had deliberately thrown Rubio to the wolves. Teach the young pup that he’s not ready for prime time.
There’s another young pup in the news too, King Kim, III, better known as Kim Jong Un, overfed face grimly fixed following news that North Korea has set off another atom bomb. Can anyone look at North Korea and not wonder when the whole starving decaying country will collapse?
Republicans too, live in a decaying house of cards built of false, fraudulent, self-serving ideas, sheltering a weird mix of so-called Libertarians, Tea Party malcontents, women-bashers, assault-rifle toters, holy rollers, blue collar lotto-playing wannabe millionaires, with a few out of sight money-mad billionaires to yank their wires.
Strange that a brilliant State of the Union address with a travesty rebuttal, and an atom bomb explosion with a travesty justification happened to happen at the very same time.