State of the Union gets graded

Between Vice President Joe Biden’s unpredictably awesome facial expressions and Speaker of the House John Boehner’s predictably orange skin tone, watching President Barack Obama’s sixth State of the Union with no sound wouldn’t be the worst way to spend a Tuesday evening. If you watched the speech with volume, here’s my assessment of the speech’s main themes, using the college letter grade scheme.

Linyan Tian | Daily Trojan

The Message: A-

Following their defeat in the most recent midterm elections, the Democrats were in need of a serious identity boost. In the State of the Union, Obama crafted a cohesive vision for the Democratic Party based on populist notions like redistributing wealth via higher capital gains taxes. This message is perhaps too radical to attract a general election electorate, but Obama’s speech attempted to cast those populist notions in a more moderate light by connecting them to lower taxes for the middle class and investments in each child’s education.

Obama’s poise and humor reminded me that the same Obama who inspired the nation in 2008 with a charismatic message of “hope and change” is back. When Obama noted that he “had no more campaigns left to run,” he sent a clear signal that he is moving into legacy mode. Though he went on to outline an extensive congressional wish list, of which we can expect little progress, Obama balanced that message with an eagerness to “go it alone” and move the nation forward.

Minus half a letter grade for setting the record for the most veto threats (four) in any presidential address to Congress in history. The constant veto threat undermined the otherwise well-outlined vision of working with Congress in a post-partisan era, a vision that is important for the future of American politics.

Domestic Policy: A

The economy’s recovery has become the very welcome elephant in the room for the Democrats, and the sooner they start talking about it, the better. The President touted the creation of 11 million private sector jobs (to the tune of 250,000 new jobs per month in 2014), and correctly linked the gains of Wall Street with Main Street. Gas prices, for example, are at record lows, and the Energy Information Administration projects that the average family will save $750 at the pump this year.

Obama also made a number of smaller but important mentions. Climate change certainly could have used more than two minutes, but in an already time-pressed speech the president was smart to remind Americans that 2014 was the warmest year on record. He gets extra style points for his gutsy attack on the Keystone pipeline, and ridicule of climate deniers who say they aren’t scientists — the most prominent of which is Boehner, who made headlines for his famously silly “I am not a scientist”-esque quip last year.

For the first time in a State of the Union, the president explicitly recognized, and used the words, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people. He also renewed his push for guaranteeing women equal pay in the labor force. It is undeniable that the Obama era will be remembered as one of the most prolific for equality among marginalized groups in history.

Foreign Policy: C-

If you thought you were reading a column where a liberal college student sucked up to Obama and gave him nothing but As, think again.

Obama failed to conclusively indict North Korea for succeeding in de facto (albeit temporary) censorship of the Sony movie The Interview. The country is believed to be connected to the massive hack and leak of classified information from Sony, and threats of violence from the hacker group led the studio to pull the film from major theater chains. In the wake of such gross attacks on free speech, the world also bore witness to the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Obama should have offered to the global audience a robust defense of freedom of the press and made a commitment to punish those who would seek to reduce that right, be they rogue nations or terrorists.

Obama’s most terrifying request came when he called on Congress to pass a “resolution to authorize the use of force against ISIL.” Such an authorization would be the ultimate regression to Bush-era policies. The 2001 AUMF passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks laid the groundwork for the very decade of war and expenditure that quickly surpassed its original purpose and continues to justify executive actions like drone strikes. Ironically, Obama touted ending that very decade of war at the beginning of his speech.

Such a recommendation is a blemish upon a speech that was otherwise a much-needed and prolific reminder that the state of the union is indeed strong.

Nathaniel Haas is a junior majoring in political science and economics. His column, “State of the Union,” runs Fridays.