State of the Union

I thought President Obama's State of the Union speech was excellent.  He was straightforward, pragmatic, and non-partisan, and outlined a compelling vision of a future America.  I particularly liked how everything he spoke about in the first half of his speech revolved around making America competitive again and what role the federal government not only can, but MUST, play in making this happen.  The power of government to spur innovation has been proven throughout our history and we cannot let ideology get in the way of promoting the creation and manufacturing of next generation technologies in the U.S. 

While his message was aimed at the domestic market, Obama's focus on competitiveness applies to our foreign policy as well.  In fact, I would argue that it must be the cornerstone of our grand strategy for the foreseeable future.  The major challenges posed to the United States in the 21st century (the rise of the rest, terrorism, and climate change) cannot be met by our old strategies of containment or offshore balancing.  This notion, that competitiveness must be our grand strategy, is something I have been toying with for the past couple of weeks.  I've already begun writing about it and hope to post in more detail on the topic soon.  I just thought I would mention it here now given the content of Obama's speech and to give you all a heads up that another political piece is coming soon (I promise it won't be one of my famous rants!).

I'm curious what you all thought about Obama's speech.  Do you think he had the right tone? Focus on the right topics? I'd love to get a discussion going if possible, so let it rip!