The state of a presidency

The state of a presidency

• Jan 28th 2010, 2:00 by R.M. | NEW YORK

AN ARTICLE in today's New York Times on the repair of damaged artwork made me think about the Obama administration. According to the report, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is learning hard lessons about the difficulty of fixing broken masterpieces. Restoration projects often take longer than expected, and sometimes they are unsuccessful. Tonight Barack Obama takes on a role similar to that of the Met's conservators, as he tries to restore the lustre to his presidency. And as with the Met's craftsmen, there is no guarantee he will succeed in piecing his agenda back together.

According to early reports, Mr Obama will use his state-of-the-union address to admit some mistakes and outline plans to create jobs, salvage health-care reform and change the way government works. This, of course, has been the president's agenda from the start, so it will be interesting to see how he makes it new again and if he is able to reconnect with the American people. It is way too early to say Mr Obama's presidency is riding on this speech, but it is a chance for him to retake control of his political fortunes...at least until Congress convenes tomorrow morning.

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10:50: Okay folks, that's all for tonight. Thanks, as always, to all our commenters. We'll have more analysis on the blog tomorrow, and our report on the speech will be up on the homepage shortly.

10:44: So. They've chosen to recreate the SOTU in miniature. He's walking out, shaking hands nearby, just like the president. Interesting, and again probably a good idea.

10:43: This speech is a series of earnestly-delivered cliches almost completely untroubled by reality. For that reason, I assume he will one day be president.

10:42: Yes Mr Purple, I find myself agreeing with him more than I thought I would. For example, I also want to defeat terrorism. And all this "opportunity" sounds wonderful.

10:41: Innovative energy policies to create jobs and lower energy prices? Count me in. For instance, my programme...Whoops, onto education. All kids need it, so let's make schools and teachers better and more equitable. To do that, perhaps we could...Well, time for Iraq. This is fun. McDonnell appears to be staunchly in favour of good things, and resolutely opposed to bad ones.

10:39: OK, I take part of that back. Who told everyone to giggle maniacally at "We welcome your suggestions on Facebook and Twitter."

10:37: I know it's tough to follow a president (especially this president), but this speech could have been made at any time in the last 50 years.

10:35: "Best medical system in the world"? Does anyone still believe that? Wait, yes, many Americans do, which is why we don't have reform.

10:34: The response speech is always death for the party that delivers it from a sound stage after the President of the United States has addressed an adoring Congress. This works much better as theatre. And Mr McDonnell is doing a pretty good job so far.

10:34: Combine Bob McDonnell's woodenness and Bobby Jindal's muppetness and you may end up with a reasonable approximation of a human being.

10:31: Like his twin sons, I'm also giving him ten minutes before I go and watch SportsCenter.

10:30: The Republicans are whooping it up in Virginia. Definitely an upgrade from last year's catastrophic scene.

10:30: Bob McDonnell now, giving the GOP response. Smart move giving it in front of a crowd instead of in his living room.

10:29: More notes from the National Review crowd, rather less substantive than the last one I mentioned: “The president looks like a jerk tonight…I have watched many, many State of the Union speeches. This is the most partisan, least presidential of them all… I actually try to give the president of the United States the benefit of the doubt. But the blaming of the past administration is pathetically unpresidential…the president has chosen to exude annoyance…”

10:26: An understandably domestic-focused speech could have used more on Iran—probably the biggest issue in American foreign policy and one where a signal from the president in a speech at this level would be huge. Where was an acknowledgment of Iran's protestors, and the regime's brutal repression?

10:24: Really, I think it's a solid speech: pragmatic advocacy mixed with appeals to American ideals of an earthy sort; not city-on-a-hill stuff, but help-your-grandmother-across-the-street ideals. He can do this every day, and he can do it intelligently and, at times, even beautifully. To what avail, though, if he doesn't follow through and produce some real and measurable achievements?

10:23: And now that I consider it, that may be exactly what he needs to sound like.

10:22: He's starting to sound a bit like a Chevy commercial.

10:21: Well, I guess he's united us all in boredom.

10:18: The Corner says "Obama channels Bush"--his health-care challenge to Republicans is Bush's Social Security challenge. It's a good point.

10:16 Hear hear on gays in the military. The Marine commandant could not look less chuffed, but he looks like he wouldn't be chuffed if you were pinning the Congressional Medal of Honor on him for eating Osama bin Laden's kidneys.

10:15: Surely that is a first-ever mention of Guinea in a state of the union address for the country.

10:15: But no one would want a president who just talks about himself all the time. They're presidents, not mascots. Conundrum?

10:13: But the interesting thing is that his best narratives during the campaign were about himself. And his most effective passages here--attacking the partisanship of Congress, admitting his frustration about the bank bailout, defending the stimulus--have been animated by his own feelings on the subject.

10:12: Mr Black, I agree with you, and I think this goes to Mr Purple's earlier observation from Junot Diaz that Mr Obama has had an uneasy transition from the narrative arcs of the campaign season to the analytical approach of the presidency

10:07: Two things. First this is turning into a long (read somewhat boring) speech. Second, Mr Obama certainly comes off as a chastened leader. He is not nearly as inspiring as he often is when giving a big speech.

10:05: Fantastic how Al Franken is seated just behind the joint chiefs. This finally brings home that Stuart Smalley is now a US senator.

10:04: When he reminded Democrats that they need to govern and not run from the hills, and received a partial standing ovation, can we assume that those who remained seated were plotting the quickest path to said hills?

10:01: Why does 530+ members standing up and applauding the idea of posting earmarks online tell me it's never, ever going to happen?

10:01: This business about earmark reform and lobbyists is so 2008 and this administration is pretty fungible on such issues anyway. It's a waste of time that as the other bloggers say should have been spent on health-care reform.

10:00: I love that they just cut to the Supreme Court getting a scolding.

9:59: Look, I'm worried that he overestimates the American people, or at least their interest in politics. Pay-as-you-go-laws, government-spending caps, deficit reduction: these are important things, but they make people's eyes glaze over. Government death panels telling mom she's too old for medicine so get the coffin ready: this is inane and patently untrue, but it's a nice little nugget that plays on an extant and rational fear of government bloat. And at the end of the day, more people will remember death panels. Even if plenty of people see through it, that's the hook on which a story can hang. He needs a few hooks like that.

9:56: Uh oh, this just in from the Los Angeles Times: "NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead." I feel very strongly that Americans are entitled to look forward to sending people to the moon at all times.

9:55: A satisfactory riff on health-care reform, but it kind of reminds me that he wasn't at all vocal enough when all that lobbying and horse-trading he mentioned was going full swing.

9:54: Wait, is that it on health care? He's moving right to government spending? Nothing more? I hope Rahm's sharpening some knives and dusting off the brass knuckles, because that was weak. He's the president and this is the biggest stage of the year: light a fire under Congress.

9:54: I was typing almost exactly what black said on Medicare, Medicaid, etc. Kids, we need to cut the budget, but the mortgage, the utilities, insurance and food will not be affected. That's why I'm proposing a three-year freeze on your allowance.

9:53: Spending related to national security, Medicare, Medicaid....well, basically everything that costs anything....will not be effected. Useful.

9:50: PRESIDENT ADMITS GLOBAL COOLING! Oh, wait, he meant as political temperatures cool.

9:49: The process left more Americans wondering "What's in it for me" seems to require that he explain what's in it for me. Instead there follows a torrent of campaign rhetoric. This echoes his tendency over the past week to tell people how ready he is to fight for health care, followed by not actually fighting for health care. He's going to have to land a punch or two someday.

9:46: Michelle could have looked a little more gracious and a little less "noblesse oblige" just there.

9:45: Green and purple, the pivot from climate to competitiveness has been clear since the senate left "climate" out of the title of its bill and called it the "Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act".

9:44: "We need to export more goods." Also, I need a Nobel prize. Wait. That's not a joke for something absurdly unachievable.

9:42: This is a much looser SOTU than I got used to under George Bush--much more house of commons--applause is shorter, but more frequent, jeers are obvious, Mr Obama is anticipating it and working off Republican hostility like a stage comic with hecklers.

9:41: Very nice pivot again from belief in climate change to a pragmatic call for green energy for economic reasons.

9:40: Nuclear and offshore—a nice surprise. Clean coal, not so much--nice if it works at cost, but it doesn't. An energy-and-emissions bill just got its chances of survival boosted from 10% to... 25%?

9:40: This is Tom Friedman's line on clean energy--that China is kicking us like a can--and I think it's an effective one.

9:38: Germany's not waiting? Should we really do something because Germany's rushing in?

9:36: Q: What do China, Germany, and India have in common? A: I have no idea. An "a" in all their names? An odd grouping—behold Goldman Sachs's new bloc of countries—the IRGs. (Sorry Brazil, sorry Russia.)

9:34: "I am not interested in punishing banks" v. I want tighter regulation is a very tight line to walk. The question is how the markets will respond in the next couple of days.

9:33: If I was the president I would phrase all requests by saying I want it on my desk without delay. Jobs bill and a grilled-cheese sandwich.

9:30: I'm glad that we're talking about infrastructure, but it's half-way through this. At what point does he give the health-care spiel?

9:26: Good sell of the stimulus, but I wonder if he isn't getting bogged down in numbers and specifics. Junot Diaz made a great observation in the New Yorker: Obama the storyteller has been replaced by Obama the analyst, and analysis, however accurate, is never as compelling as narrative.

9:25: "The recovery bill, also known as the stimulus act." Over the past few minutes he's been effectively tapping into his own frustration...not the usual presidential emotional appeal, but I like it on him.

9:24: Joe Biden just mouthed the words "good line". It's like they didn't let him read it beforehand.

9:22: Republicans sitting stone-faced at "we cut taxes". Ha! "I thought I'd get some applause on that one." And was that a wink?

9:21: Wow. Happy 85th birthday, Tim Geithner. For anyone thinking of taking a job in Washington, that close-up was an anti-ad.

9:21: "Our first task was to shore up the same banks that caused this crisis...I hated it, you hated it." Wow, this really is a different kind of SOTU. I'm actually curious for the rest of this.

9:20: See, "We all hated the bank bailout. I hated it, you hated it, it was about as popular as a root canal." That went over much better.

9:19: "We do not give up. We do not quit." I think that's what Carver said on top of the roller in Episode 1, Season 3 of The Wire.

9:18: This is too much "they" and "them" and not enough "you" and "we"

9:16: "Change has not come fast enough." I have blogged this so many times, but it practically thrills me to see this White House beat itself up after the last White House could do no wrong.

9:15: Very nice melancholy opening, I thought: Bull Run, the Allied landing, civil rights marchers turned back. He has a gift for mining the darker and more uncertain moments of American history and using them as pivots.

9:14: There was something oddly detached about that opening. The constitution says that the president has to give information to Congress. I am the president. I will now give information to Congress. The constitution says I have to.

9:13: The odds that Joe Biden would suddenly start talking after Ms Pelosi announced she was introducing the president? I'd say 10-1, 25-1. Possible, anyway.

9:12: Heimdall, you say that like it's a bad thing.

9:11: Sgt Munley (from Fort Hood) to Michelle's right.

9:10: I'll be watching Fox tonight, having skipped a lot of the obsessive pre-speech commentary. I'm trying to watch it like most Americans might.

9:07: David Brooks and Mark Shields are like duelling cups of warm milk. I'm with Jon Stewart on opposing mindless shouting partisanship, but can't we replace it with something sharper than the Tryptophan Twins?

9:05: Do we know who tonight's "designated survivor" (that phrase frightens me) is? Hillary Clinton is out of town, but it's on secretary-of-state errands.

9:01: Tavis Smiley just asked Hillary Clinton if she was interested in running for president. I've never seen a smile quite that frozen. I think the make-up artist had to peel it off.

9:01: The only person whose fortunes have improved in the past year are Michelle's. Great dress, great hair.

9:00: And we begin.