The Union is afraid, and deeply uncertain about its future, but you wouldn’t know that from listening to President Obama last night.   No, our “union is strong,” and the great and building anger of the body politic is nothing but the mewling of spoiled children. And like all parents of misbehaving children, Obama seems disgusted that he even has to deal with us.

He smiled as he chastised the American people for their anxieties and the Republicans for their opposition, even as he tried to claim Scott Brown’s victory for his own.  His calling out of the Supreme Court was unseemly and unpresidential, and representative of the entire speech.  His manner was careless to the point of callous, an attitude the American people are getting sick of.

The Bulls Run analogy was especially clever, and conveniently buried in the lead.  In case you missed it, it’s in paragraph three: “It’s tempting to look back on these moments and assume that our progress was inevitable – that America was always destined to succeed. But when the Union was turned back at Bull Run and the Allies first landed at Omaha Beach, victory was very much in doubt.” So the President moving forward with an agenda the republic doesn’t want is comparable to the Union under Lincoln and the Allies on D-Day.  Which makes his opponents what?  Confederate Nazis? Disgusting.

Aside from his usual cheerleaders at MSDNC and Time Magazine, the speech impressed no one.  It wasn’t even as lyrical or pseudo-uplifting as his other trope.  This was a bitter address by a man who is unused to personal and professional setbacks, a man who is lashing out in anger at the civil society that has rejected his agenda. 

Amongst all of the lies and obfuscation, President Obama has managed to keep one campaign promise, and for that I salute him.  He pledged to unite the red and blue states, until we were once again a United States, and as the good people of Massachusetts demonstrated, he has done exactly that.  United against his agenda, certainly, but united just the same.

I say bring on 2010.  Let this election be a clear choice between the progressive statist agenda and the enlightenment values of classic liberalism. Obama and his party will lose such an open contest handily.