PERSISTENCE

I listened to Mr. Obama's SOTU, which was mostlhy an outline of his plans to continue to move the country forward, with or without the useless Boehner and his House Republicans.

The speech was, for the most part, optimistic, focusing on what we Americans can accomplish if we have the will and the good sense to work together.

I hope every Democrat running for office in 2014 will use the image of the GOPers NOT applauding when President Obama said this:


"This year, let’s all come together – Congress, the White House, and businesses from Wall Street to Main Street – to give every woman the opportunity she deserves. Because I firmly believe when women succeed, America succeeds."



The GOPers richly earn the "anti-women" label they protest is so undeserved.


Andrew Sullivan had this to say about the speech:


"The metaphor of the soldier slowly, relentlessly, grindingly putting his life back together was a powerful one for America – and Obama pulled off that analogy with what seemed to me like real passion. One aspect of his personality and his presidency is sometimes overlooked – and that is persistence. He’s been hailed as a hero and dismissed as irrelevant many times. But when you take a step back and assess what he has done – from ending wars to rescuing the economy to cementing a civil rights revolution to shifting the entire landscape on healthcare – you can see why he believes in persistence. Because it works. It may not win every news cycle; but it keeps coming back. 

 If he persists on healthcare and persists on Iran and persists on grappling, as best we can, with the forces creating such large disparities in wealth, he will look far, far more impressive from the vantage point of history than the news cycle of the Twitterverse sometimes conveys."


President Obama is persistent.  And history tells us how that is rewarded:




“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race,” – Calvin Coolidge.


Charlie Pierce gives us a review of one (how many rebuttals did they need to answer what they claim is a "weak" president? 5? 6? LOL!) wingnut's confutation to President Obama's SOTU.


Oh, and those Executive Orders the Gee-Oh-Pee-ers are wetting themselves over?


"Whenever a President is forced to govern by Executive Order, it isn't testimony to his leadership weakness, but to the adversarial, obstructive, and deliberate actions of the people who fight his attempts to move this country forward. If we had a Republican Congress who hadn't blocked 18 Jobs Bills, 3 Infrastructure Bills, Bills against Minimum Wage, against extending Unemployment Benefits to 1.6 million Americans, against Equal Pay for women, Executive Order would never have to be considered, but a REAL LEADER DOES WHAT HE HAS TO MAKE THIS A BETTER AMERICA FOR ALL OF US." - Marian D. Fisher