On Tuesday, President Obama's fifth State of the Union address took a thorough domestic focus. In the speech that lasted more than an hour, Obama spent about 15 minutes talking about Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, drones, and closing Gitmo. However, he stated firmly that 2014 was going to be a year of action and that he was prepared to work without congressional support. Critics have noted this statement as a public first in regards to Obama's stance on executive orders to advance his agenda. The meat of the speech was on progress as opposed to radical change. The speech was largely political rhetoric and many supporters (and critics alike) called it too tame. Instead of taking firm stances on a variety of divisive issues, Obama stayed in the middle. Political scholar William Galston stated "...the president did not come across as an aggressive practitioner of unilateral executive power". Yet, Obama did promise to continue cracking down on any new nuclear sanctions from Iran. He also called (again) for the closing of Gitmo which was one of his strongest campaign legs in 2009. In regards to Afghanistan, he pledged to keep a small force of Americans in pursuit of two missions: training of Afghan security forces and counter-terrorism.
--Emily Goodfellow (PSC 222)
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