While watching tonight, I thought “if only…” several times. If only…



  • Federal pay were really frozen (instead of just dropping this year’s COLA).
  • We had thought about freezing domestic spending before it skyrocketed this year.
  • Lawmakers had avoided that 1099 mess in the first place.
  • Barack Obama had gone into stand-up comedy instead of politics…

He actually had some really good jokes.  My favorite was in reference to a high-speed rail that would make some trips even faster than an airplane, but “without the patdown.”


If only that invasive patdown and through-your-clothes screening stuff had never happened.


But overall, excellent speech.  I’ve always thought President Obama looks stronger as a “uniter” which he could pretend to be tonight than a “divider” which he had to be in 2010 because of midterm elections.  If only uniting and leading the country were as easy as his speech made it sound.