The State of The Union

After watching the state of the union, my first reaction was how less defensive the president sounded than last year.  Last year he was selling the ideas of the Health Care Act and the Stimulus Package.  I think he needed to fight of the critics to get those passed.  Now, he realizes he can't be so brash as to propose a big liberal bill.  He must sell less ambitious, more bipartisan ideas or else he will be asking for it when he can't follow though.  Sure there were a couple of times he attacked the republicans, like when he brought up the health care bill. And he did set some ambitious goals as far as renewable energy, but those years are so far off nobody will hold him accountable.  But mostly he was setting an agenda that seemed more reasonable than before given the republican lead house.  His main point seemed to be working with the innovative businesses of the U.S. to get us prosperous within our borders and on the world stage.
       The president is indeed going public with the state of the union.  With the coverage overlapping whatever new reality show was scheduled for Tuesday night, the president had an audience that might not necessarily follow politics year round.  Therefore, these people's opinions are mostly influenced by sound bites, and the tea party rhetoric seems to make for really interesting sound bites.  All of the politicians in the room most likely already knew where Obama is firm in his agenda and where he has leeway.  The SOTU is where he encapsulates it to the American people.
      With personalized stories he is trying to strike a cord with the American people.  While there are no big elections within the year, he must continue to gain the support of the voters for his 2012 election.  Besides the PR, he must set the tone for what will be a difficult year between him and the house.  He tried to come across as willing to negotiate and make tough decisions when it comes to budget reduction.  At the same time he was proposing transportation measures that the GOP will probably not go along with.  I do not believe he will have success on such issues because I don't see the American people wanting speed rails in such times.  But where he has the most power to influence are such as inevitable issues as deficit reduction.  He came down with his stance that more is needed than budget slashing.  He is really trying to influence Americans because he wants them to pressure their legislators into not taking away money from such staples as medicare and social security.  This is probably where he can have his biggest success from the SOTU.
      Though I fear our country is so partisan that the only people receptive to his message are those liberals.

Constitution Changes

The first of my changes would be the one I see the least need for, presidential pardons.  When researching this, I realized Presidents have pardoned far more people than I thought.  The number is in the thousands.  When only hearing about he high profile ones on the news, it can be easy to write off the whole concept as faulty.  But, I do see how it can be acceptable for the president to step in for certain cases.  While judges are supposed to ruling on the basis of the constitution, obviously bias can creep into their rulings.  This could be the case in conservative areas, where the judges might see certain social topics and slant their ruling to reflect the values of the judge or the area they are representing.
Now, on the flip side is the ugly face of pardoning.  These include the high-profile pardons, controversial pardons such as Scooter Libby and Mark Rich.  I feel that there have been enough cases over the course of history to determine that this effect of presidential pardoning is detrimental and should make us re-evaluate the constitution.  I propose giving pardoning powers to a larger group of people such as the senate or house of representatives.  This would hopefully negate the pardoning of friends, yet still allow for the pardoning in flawed sentences.  Of course, both parties will try to pardon different kinds of sentences and this might create a log jam of congressional hearings.  To prevent this, I propose that the president is the one who is able to bring forth a possible pardon to the ruling group.

Also, I believe the presidents appointment power should be diminished in the case of secretaries.  Congressional sub-committees are comprised of knowledgeable politicians on their given topic.  Multiple governmental agencies are related to a given sub-committee. The sub-committees are also led by members of the majority party, meaning most of the laws enacted during that term will be ones that the majority party favors.  Does it really make sense to have the leader of a department possibly at odds with the new laws it must regulate?  This would allow for the new laws and regulations that congress approves to be put into action more seamlessly.  I believe that congress would do just as good of a job as the president of picking a good leader for each department as the president.

My Final change would be giving the power of appointing supreme court justices to congress.  This is a very partisan practice by the presidents and I do not believe that is appropriate.  I understand the majority party in congress has to vote the justices into court.  But, it would be a less partisan practice if it simply needed a majority vote and the president had veto power.