{"id":1780,"date":"2013-02-18T12:02:16","date_gmt":"2013-02-18T17:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/intentchopra\/?p=1780"},"modified":"2013-02-18T12:03:10","modified_gmt":"2013-02-18T17:03:10","slug":"1780","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/2013\/02\/1780.html","title":{"rendered":"The State of the Union as Rorschach Test"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was surprising how President Obama&#8217;s State of the Union speech went down. Immediately afterwards, television pundits offered clashing descriptions: prosaic, bread and butter, Clinton-like, an extension of the liberal agenda outlined in the Inaugural Address, uplifting, aggressive, and so on. \u00a0More than many Presidents, Obama has become a lighthouse and a lightning rod at the same time. He is the object of projection from all sides.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What I heard was something really unusual: inspiring sobriety. \u00a0The speech laid out an agenda that was far from leftist. \u00a0It was a considered assessment of social needs, postponed priorities, and a difficult future. \u00a0In this regard Obama departed from FDR, who was struggling to restructure a collapsed landscape, from JFK, who was launching a new era of power, and from Bill Clinton, whose laundry lists of programs came at a time of rising prosperity.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Obama spoke to an anxious nation by sounding upbeat and optimistic. He has little chance of getting much legislation passed. \u00a0In the face of bitter partisanship even over pro forma matters like getting his cabinet appointed, he decided not to cloak himself as the happy warrior. \u00a0He was more like the ideal citizen, a responsible patriot who wants the best for everyone.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s amazing that the speech didn&#8217;t exude discouragement. \u00a0In a different vein, it could have come from Cassandra, the princess of Troy who was doomed to know the future but never to be believed. \u00a0Every point that the President made, if enacted, would benefit all of us. He is intelligent, adult, informed, far-seeing, and willing to embrace both sides of the aisle. \u00a0He knows better than anyone else how irrational, ill-tempered, and reactionary the opposition is. But he chose his tone of inspiring sobriety for a good reason. America won&#8217;t move forward until everyone comes to their senses.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Republican response, delivered by Sen. Marco Rubio, was a classic case of burying your head in the sand. With widespread disgust at Congress, a new generation of voters that wants government to make a difference, a resounding defeat last November, and talk of Republicans rethinking their message&#8211; none of that mattered. Rubio smoothly delivered the same message that came from the Republicans a month into Obama&#8217;s first administration: We are the party of no.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Obama will no doubt surprise us by how much he achieves against this background of opposition, division, and angst. There is talk that the Senate is quietly working out deals on the toughest problems that face us. But the real issue comes down to that now familiar phrase, the tipping point. \u00a0The country has probably reached one. The reactionary right is on its way out. But they hold enough power and have indoctrinated enough people that getting off in a new direction will be painfully slow. Obama will have to use all his gifts to push the pedal and convince Americans that there is dawn rising over the next hill.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.deepakchopra.com_\/\">www.deepakchopra.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/DeepakChopra\">Follow Deepak on Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was surprising how President Obama&#8217;s State of the Union speech went down. Immediately afterwards, television pundits offered clashing descriptions: prosaic, bread and butter, Clinton-like, an extension of the liberal agenda outlined in the Inaugural Address, uplifting, aggressive, and so on. \u00a0More than many Presidents, Obama has become a lighthouse and a lightning rod at&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":125,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[139,796,797,795],"class_list":["post-1780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-barack-obama","tag-marco-rubio","tag-obama-legislative-agenda","tag-president-obama-state-of-the-union"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The State of the Union as Rorschach Test - Deepak Chopra and Intent<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/2013\/02\/1780.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The State of the Union as Rorschach Test - Deepak Chopra and Intent\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It was surprising how President Obama&#8217;s State of the Union speech went down. Immediately afterwards, television pundits offered clashing descriptions: prosaic, bread and butter, Clinton-like, an extension of the liberal agenda outlined in the Inaugural Address, uplifting, aggressive, and so on. \u00a0More than many Presidents, Obama has become a lighthouse and a lightning rod at&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/2013\/02\/1780.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Deepak Chopra and Intent\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-02-18T17:02:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-02-18T17:03:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The State of the Union as Rorschach Test - Deepak Chopra and Intent","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/2013\/02\/1780.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The State of the Union as Rorschach Test - Deepak Chopra and Intent","og_description":"It was surprising how President Obama&#8217;s State of the Union speech went down. Immediately afterwards, television pundits offered clashing descriptions: prosaic, bread and butter, Clinton-like, an extension of the liberal agenda outlined in the Inaugural Address, uplifting, aggressive, and so on. \u00a0More than many Presidents, Obama has become a lighthouse and a lightning rod at&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/2013\/02\/1780.html","og_site_name":"Deepak Chopra and Intent","article_published_time":"2013-02-18T17:02:16+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-02-18T17:03:10+00:00","author":"Admin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/2013\/02\/1780.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/2013\/02\/1780.html","name":"The State of the Union as Rorschach Test - Deepak Chopra and Intent","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-02-18T17:02:16+00:00","dateModified":"2013-02-18T17:03:10+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/#\/schema\/person\/40a7773935ae623bbb543302f1b3520a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/2013\/02\/1780.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/2013\/02\/1780.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/2013\/02\/1780.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The State of the Union as Rorschach Test"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/","name":"Deepak Chopra and Intent","description":"Beliefnet Voices","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/#\/schema\/person\/40a7773935ae623bbb543302f1b3520a","name":"Admin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e37\/e379d06bb2d8f3928b8fb1008e150364x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e37\/e379d06bb2d8f3928b8fb1008e150364x96.jpg","caption":"Admin"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/author\/gbrown"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/125"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1780"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1783,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780\/revisions\/1783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}