I watched the President's State of the Union Address Tuesday night along with many others and like many others I have my own comments and they all don't pertain to the President.

Barack Obama is an excellent orator.  Yes, I am aware that he reads his speeches off the teleprompter and is lost without that teleprompter but this does not diminish his tonal qualities and his strength in delivery.  On most speeches I would give Obama an A for oratory despite an F for substance but last night he only gets a C for oratory along with his normal F for substance.  Unlike most speeches he has given last night's speech lacked the luster of his best work despite the fact that it resembled more of a kickoff of the 2012 campaign than it did a State of the Union report.  His speech in Tucson was infinitely stronger than the one he did at the Capitol last night.

John McCain: I listened to Senator McCain in an interview prior to the speech lamenting that most SOTU speeches are rendered ineffective because of the constant up and down in the chamber to applaud the Presidents' every word.  In Senator McCain's opinion this is true without regard as to whether the President is a democrat or a republican.  McCain went further to explain that the purpose of the speech is for the President to speak to the American people and Congress interferes with that communication by the constant interruptions for applause.  Hold on Senator McCain, does the Constitution or does it not require that the President communicate the State of the Union to the Congress every year?  Given that he is required by law to communicate to the Congress, his obligation last night was to them, not to me.  I was merely an interloper wanting to hear what our president had to say.

President Obama was no different than many other presidents last night.   He provided no State of the Union.  He merely defended some of those things he did in the last two years and offered new ways to spend money in 2011 as though he is oblivious to the very problem he began to speak of when he acknowledged that as a nation we are out of money.  Paul Ryan did provide some context to the state of our union later from the Budget Committee office where he described the deficit, the debt, the additions to the debt during the past two years and the impact of current policies on unemployment statistics.  Congressman Ryan told us the effect of the 2009 stimulus package, what it added to the debt and what we got in return.   Obama talked of high speed trains being made available to 80% of all Americans.  My mind was given to wonder whether the President had given any thought to the network of rail that would need to be laid for this to become a reality?  It would have to take on the appearance of a spider network at a cost of perhaps many trillions of dollars.  Is this the proper program to discuss with a Congress that needs to be intent on reducing debt and not adding to it?

The President also gave an excellent performance on earmarks.  But his words are vacant.  Did he not pledge during the 2008 campaign that any bill sent to him that had earmarks would be vetoed and sent back.  Why should we believe this pledge when the very first bill Congress sent for his signature in 2009 contained thousands of earmarks despite his pledge to the contrary? 

He spoke of lessening onerous regulations but reserved the right to impose regulations where he believes them to be necessary.  My problem is that I do not trust him to choose those that are necessary.

His reference to illegal immigration continues to miss the position of the majority of Americans when he proposes that after the border is secured he wants the Congress to discuss comprehensive immigration reform.  Oh, he called it something else but the message was still there.  What a wonderful example of how this government and not just this administration continues to challenge the endurance of the American people more than the will of the American people.  

His reference to the Healthcare Bill that we refer to as Obamacare was an apparent attempt to intimidate Senate Republicans against following the lead of House Republicans who have already passed a repeal.  Were that 2,700 page document capable of improvement perhaps Republicans could go along but the sheer size of the document, the number of regulations, new taxes and new federal employees makes it impossible to simply amend.  Besides, the last Congress made it clear that the document required no amendments.  No, Obamacare must be repealed and then those individual initiatives that might actually work to control costs must be addressed one at a time to provide a clear and understandable way to evaluate what is offered.  This would be real transparency. 

Then there was the offer to "freeze" government spending for five years.  Why not?  He already extended many agency budgets by more than 20% in the last cycle.   Any freeze would then be at unrealistic levels. 

Finally, I reserve my last statement to the House and Senate Republicans.

"We can always count on you.  We can always count on Republicans to throw away any political advantage they might have at their very first opportunity.  Imagine the visual that would have been available to the American public to see nearly two thirds of the chamber containing Republicans and very little more than one third of the chamber filled with Democrats.  Consider the standing ovations concentrated in one small segment of the chamber instead of spread across the room and panned by a camera that had difficulty capturing who was standing and who was sitting.  We in the Tea Party sent new Republicans to Washington D.C. to change business as usual, not to get along and not to miss an opportunity to demonstrate to the American people the impact the Obama Administration has had on the population on that floor.  It was  a direct result of Obama, Reid and Pelosi policies and their methodology of railroading healthcare legislation through that last Congress.  Thank you for denying us that opportunity."