Obama’s Darkly Optimistic State of the Union Address

By convention, the State of the Union address is part laundry list and part rallying cry. The President of the day lays out his policy priorities for the coming year, bookending and interspersing them with airy salutations to the strength, resilience, and creativity of the American people and the American republic. If a Democratic President is in office, there is often talk of new frontiers, new challenges, new covenants, or another synonym for “new deal” that White House speechwriters have wrung from their thesauruses. And whatever the policy details of the speech, or the party of its presenter, or the actual state of the union—be it even at war or mired in recession—a consistent stance is maintained: one of optimism.

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