President Obama was on fire during last night’s State of the Union address. Republicans have been ranting and raving about their so-called “mandate” from the American voters during the recent mid-term elections, but Obama 2.0 is anything but lame – or a duck.
During the address, the President promised two vetoes. The first one came early in the speech when Obama stated:
[T]he verdict is clear. Middle-class economics works. Expanding opportunity works. And these policies will continue to work as long as politics don’t get in the way. We can’t slow down businesses or put our economy at risk with government shutdowns or fiscal showdowns. We can’t put the security of families at risk by taking away their health insurance, or unraveling the new rules on Wall Street, or re-fighting past battles on immigration when we’ve got to fix a broken system. And if a bill comes to my desk that tries to do any of these things, I will veto it. It will have earned my veto.
The President’s next veto warning was in regard to foreign policy, current negotiations with Iran specifically:
Our diplomacy is at work with respect to Iran, where, for the first time in a decade, we’ve halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material. Between now and this spring, we have a chance to negotiate a comprehensive agreement that prevents a nuclear-armed Iran, secures America and our allies — including Israel, while avoiding yet another Middle East conflict. There are no guarantees that negotiations will succeed, and I keep all options on the table to prevent a nuclear Iran.
But new sanctions passed by this Congress, at this moment in time, will all but guarantee that diplomacy fails — alienating America from its allies; making it harder to maintain sanctions; and ensuring that Iran starts up its nuclear program again. It doesn’t make sense. And that’s why I will veto any new sanctions bill that threatens to undo this progress. (Applause.) The American people expect us only to go to war as a last resort, and I intend to stay true to that wisdom.
Between those two veto promises, the President took time to smack down Republicans over their support of the Keystone Pipeline Project and towards the end of the speech, Obama laid down his, now legendary, Ad-Libbed Burn On Republicans after being heckled about saying he has “no more campaigns to run.”
It should be entertaining to observe the Republican melt-down and Fox News spin the next few weeks.
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