Our Blessed State of the Union

It's one thing to be a leader who goes charging up a hill with bayonets drawn and troops in tow. It's another to go charging up alone because the troops have run off and gone AWOL. And so goes the saga of President Obama's first year in office.

Part of their defection may not be his fault. He inherited one heck of a mess. Yet under his reign, the unemployment rate has risen higher than even when his nemesis, George Bush, was in office. In his State of the Union address, Obama admitted that he could have explained the health care plan better, but maybe he really couldn't have because it was more full of holes than a pastry sieve and that rather than the Republicans was the problem. Then there is our sandbag of an economy and that near terrorist hit last December. All rather chancy.

But being a smart man who came out of nowhere, he thought he was prepared. The people that voted for him thought so, too. But results don't lie, and his popularity has taken a hit like a grounded Goodyear Blimp. While it is true that every job has its learning curve, few can have such far-flung consequences as that one. Still, the jury's still out and like Earl recently said, he has three years to help us straighten up and fly right. In the meantime, could someone pass me the aspirin?