Is the Future Something We Can “Win?”

On Tuesday night, President Obama delivered his third State of the Union address, and I commenced my yearly experiment of seeing how far I could get into the speech without falling asleep. This year, in a landmark effort helped along by the preparatory nap I took after class, I made it through the whole speech and both opposition responses. Victory!

Before we get to all the ridiculous things Obama promised to accomplish in the next two to six years, I would like to point out a few things. First, Speaker of the House John Boehner was not paying attention at all. The camera zoomed in on him at one point, and he was staring off into space for a second before realizing he was supposed to be clapping. Later, he rolled his eyes at one of Obama’s cheesy anecdotes. Can someone remind this man that he’s on television please? Second, our Vice President and gaffe-master-in-chief fist pumped when Obama gave a shout-out to his hometown of Scranton, Pa. Say what you will about Joe Biden, the guy knows how to put a smile on a blogger’s face.

Now on to the important part. Obama focused much more on rhetoric than on outlining specific, achievable goals. He spoke generally about attacking the deficit by slashing spending on all fronts and encouraging growth with reforms to the tax code, generally about reducing dependence on foreign oil when proposing that 80 percent of America’s electricity come from clean energy by 2035 (not likely), generally about increasing high speed rail and high speed internet access, and generally about how America needs to improve its performance in science, math, and technology. He spoke in detail about very little, and not at all about how he planned to accomplish his energy and infrastructure goals, though that is to be expected. No one wants to sit through an hour-long lecture on policy, especially not me – that’s what I go to class for.

The speech was at times obnoxiously angsty. He complained about America’s lagging education system and seemed to chide American parents for their failure to instill proper obsession with grades in their children. After stating that America was falling behind in science and math, he added (and you could almost imagine him saying it in a whiny voice) that American students “don’t just memorize equations,” implying that this somehow makes up for the fact that the American education system has failed this student so badly that I have made it through fifteen years of schooling and have no idea how to divide without a calculator.

Perhaps the most pervasive theme of this evening’s speech was the President’s professed goal to “win the future.” I’m all for America increasing competitiveness and improving its education and infrastructure, but talking about winning the future is surprisingly Americentrist for a president who once drew huge crowds in Israel and Germany by promising to usher in a new era of American cooperation and communication with foreign countries.  Not to mention I had never previously realized that the future was a thing we could win. I mean, who’s keeping score? Although to Obama’s credit, I have to say I find the “win the future” catchphrase marginally less annoying than his previous obsession with the “Wall Street” versus “Main Street” comparison.

Obama’s speech, though non-specific, slightly whiny, and determinedly centrist didn’t give me much to really complain about. I will be shocked if the new era of bipartisan cooperation he spoke of actually comes to pass, though not nearly as shocked as I will be if the arbitrary goals he set are achieved. But it’s as good a starting point as any, and hopefully it will be enough to get Congress working on an agenda that involves something besides pointless arguing.