Of course we are all inclined to stop listening to our ideological opponents at some point, so I'm opening myself up to accusations of merely giving in to my bias, but I think this is true enough to warrant attention:
No one's really listening to the president now. He has been for five years a nonstop wind-up talk machine. Most of it has been facile, bland, the same rounded words and rounded sentiments, the same soft accusations and excuses. I see him enjoying the sound of his voice as the network newsman leans forward eagerly, intently, nodding at the pearls, enacting interest, for this is the president and he is the anchorman and surely something important is being said with two such important men engaged.
But nothing interesting was being said! Looking back on this presidency, it has from the beginning been a 17,000 word New Yorker piece in which, calmly, sonorously, with his lovely intelligent voice, the president says nothing, or little that is helpful, insightful or believable. "I'm not a particularly ideological person." "It's hard to anticipate events over the next three years." "I don't really even need George Kennan right now." "I am comfortable with complexity." "Our capacity to do some good . . . is unsurpassed, even if nobody is paying attention."
Nobody is!
She's talking about her low expectations for the president's State of the Union address coming up on Tuesday, in which once again he will say absolutely nothing of any interest whatsoever. He's crippled the economy, wrecked the health care system, led from behind so much on foreign policy that we're the joke of the world, and what's he going to focus on? Income inequality, which is just another way of saying "let's take some more those rich bastards' money and spread it around." Yeah, that'll get the country on the right track again.
