President Obama's State of the Union Address

President Obama’s State of the Union Address was average, in my opinion, until the last seven minutes. Obama went over and mentioned approximately twenty one policies in his speech, which ran a little over an hour. Audience members were seen at various moments throughout the speech wearing different buttons on their jackets or tops. Some of these buttons were worn in honor of unifying Congressmen and women under the party of “problem solvers”. This was a clear statement that these people wanted to participate in actual voting and policy making instead of the usual ineffective bickering fueled by divisions on party lines. The other pin was a green ribbon honoring the victims of the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. The way that Obama addressed both of these issues was interesting, showing his diverse speaking abilities and highlighting overt and covert methods of broaching a subject matter.

            After almost every policy point Obama brought up, he mentioned that this wasn’t in effect yet due to the lack of decision making in Congress. Weeks before his address, the entire nation showed its displeasure with congress and gave them their lowest approval rate ever at seventeen percent. When the country’s finances were about to push the nation over the “fiscal cliff”, Starbucks baristas wrote “#cometogether” on everyone’s coffee cups, sending a message to congress that the members needed to come together for the good of the country. After the election, a magazine cover even depicted congress as a group of crying infants.    

            This message was definitely received by Obama, as he peppered his speech with tiny insults directed at Congress, his immediate audience. One example was when he spoke about the budget saying, “In 2011, Congress passed a law saying that if both parties couldn't agree on a plan to reach our deficit goal, about a trillion dollars' worth of budget cuts would automatically go into effect this year. These sudden, harsh, arbitrary cuts would jeopardize our military readiness. They'd devastate priorities like education, energy, and medical research. They would certainly slow our recovery, and cost us hundreds of thousands of jobs. That's why Democrats, Republicans, business leaders, and economists have already said that these cuts, known here in Washington as "the sequester," are a really bad idea. Now, some in this Congress have proposed preventing only the defense cuts by making even bigger cuts to things like education and job training; Medicare and Social Security benefits. This ideas is even worse.”

            More phrases that were much more indirect with blame were thrown at Congress such as, “And I know that you want these job-creating projects in your districts. I've seen you all at the ribbon-cuttings”, Let's prove that there is no better place to do business than the United States of America. And let's start right away”, “Take a vote, and send me that bill. Right now, overlapping regulations keep responsible young families from buying their first home. What's holding us back?”. By posing issues in a way that put the ball in Congresses proverbial court, Obama effectively strengthens his ethos by making it appear as if he has done everything that he needed to on his end but Congress is dragging his process down.

            While the speech was really a “let’s throw the blame off of me” speech for over fifty minutes, the last seven minutes of the speech turned the address from ordinary to unusual but effective. When it came time to introduce the people who were present as guests, many families from Newtown were represented along with policemen who had taken gunshot wounds on duty and, possibly the most deliberately placed couple being the parents of the young girl who was shot one week after singing at the president’s inauguration. All of a sudden, an issue that hadn’t come up (but that everyone was waiting for) was on the table in a big way. With this representative set of people looking on, Obama challenged Congress as to why these people who has endured such hardship were not being dealt with. Obama used the phrase “they deserve a simple vote”, effectively simplifying the process of a congressional vote and throwing the onus on others once again. This unique blend of pathos and ethos was a smart choice on his part, as he acknowledged the problem, related his ideas and proximity to the problem to the audience, and then directed the blame and grief that these people in the box seats felt onto that same audience, declaring (in context) that by failing to get “simple” propositions and votes out of the system that Congress could not deal with something that was such an issue in the country today.

            The unique blend of ethos and pathos in the speech lead many listeners to feel even worse about congress and the job that they are doing in Washington. By framing the votes as “simple” and common sense, Obama effectively and strategically used Congress to shift the blame off of himself. Instead of dealing with these issues immediately, he went campaigning the next day, furthering his plan to appeal to the people and not Congress. He showed the public that he does not answer to Congress, and is not pleased with the job that they are doing. While I agree and disagree with various policies, I certainly agree that Obama is a strategic and gifted speaker who realizes that the manipulation of rhetoric can place him in an authoritative, superior light, leaving nothing for Congress to defend them with. The context of the speech put listeners into a frame of mind that Congress is the reason certain things are not done, that Congress is hold back progress for the country, and that Congress is ineffective when it comes to national policies. This throws the light onto Congress while Obama campaigns and tries to improve his public image. His strategy increased is ethos (unless you were analyzing it) and seemed to bring in the real pathos after he was done going through policy, highlighting his presidential side instead of his fatherly side.