POTUS on the SOTU

I have to admit that I borrowed the title of this post from my fellow College Democrats at Indiana University Executive Board member Chris Babcock.

Yesterday the President of the United States (POTUS) delivered the annual State of the Union (SOTU) address to a joint session of Congress, members of the Supreme Court and most importantly, the American people.

I want to focus on one thing that President Obama said during the address, and that is that "We will move forward together, or not at all."


Clearly, the president was stating the fact that the Democrats must be willing to work with the new Republican majority in the House in order to get anything done over the next two years and move this country forward. The election was already fought in November of 2010, and that is the way it should stay. The two parties must now look for ways to work together to find common ground on the many challenges that face the nation - high unemployment, the housing crisis, the public debt, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the country's failing education system.

Also, it is imperative that the two parties do not begin to alienate each other this early in the new Congress. The display of bipartisanship at the SOTU by sitting across the isle is a good showing of the spirit that this Congress will have toward working together. However, we cannot be fooled, for every time a display of bipartisanship has been shown, it has not taken too long to return to the bitter partisanship that the American people have grown almost too used to.

I do have hope though, that the current atmosphere of working together will continue and that the two parties will emerge from the past two years of bitter deadlock and at least try to find common ground through a deliberative process, and not so much a debate process.

Hopefully, the members of Congress will realize that what the president said yesterday was not only a catchy phrase drafted by his speechwriter, but had true meaning behind it, that either the parties will learn to work together to do right by the American people, or will remain on opposite sides of the isle, both figuratively and literally, and accomplish nothing toward creating a more perfect union.

*Photo courtesy of msnbc.com