What's up with State of the Union

That's been a question for a few days. In every mention of this speech tonight, no one calls it a "State of The Union" speech. Neither did I. I've seen it called "State of the Union - like". Well I finally looked around to figure this out, and turns out the speeches we get in January of February are not always State of the Union speeches. The first speech of a presidency is not a state of the union evidently. Here's a good discussion of State of the Union speeches:

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/sou.php

The third paragraph gets you the recent history. Next year we will have a State of the Union, maybe.

For this year, Obama starts with a "we shall overcome the economy" message... and that's the right way to go. There's been quite a bit written about his Scare Monger in Chief style the last few weeks, especially here, hopefully we will now see a more proactive leadership style starting tonight.

.... and nary a negative word to be heard. Tonight was by far the most positive statements from Obama since becoming president. Trading would be a good way to judge the speech, Australia and oil are both non-reactive to the speech, but at least there's been no massive selloff. So the verdict is, cheer leading is good. Scare mongering is bad. Obama did a little cheer leading.

Details? There were a few vague references that could spell big trouble for our future. Rumor has it he wants to ax missile defense, and there was a vague statement tonight refering to that. Missile defense has been hated by democrats ever since it was a gleam in Ronald Reagen's eye. It is amazing technology that we need to protect ourselves against Iran's EMP scenario, if for no other reason. A successful EMP attack would set our economy back 100 years, and change the world overnight. The same people who ridiculed the idea of terrorist attacks against the US in the 90's today ridicule the idea of an attack from Iran.

Well, like I said there were no specifics. It was a good cheer leading speech. That's what was needed tonight.