Last night, I was in no hurry to listen to our president deliver another speech.  I felt that it would be a little redundant, and quite frankly condescending for the president to try to tell the country about its current state, making us all relive these hard times in double layers. I thought, surely he couldn’t tell us anything that we didn’t already know. And by the end, it was clear that I wasn’t wrong.

Like many Americans, I too have lost much of my confidence in our president; and while not to the degree that I’d ever be willing to take up a teabag over it, I’ve lost just enough of my confidence that I generally don’t bother fighting the urge to change the channel when I see him on Channel 9 delivering some great oratorical promise he’ll later not fulfill.

It seems too early to say that I’ve seen and heard it all from the president, but I feel I have—all 52 weeks worth of Obama-charm and that undying gift to gab.  By now, I expect more doing from him, and less talking about doing.

The State of the Union Address in all of its fine and pointless tradition was just more of our president “talking about doing.”  It was difficult to sit through—almost like listening to 6-inch nails on a chalk board, or an alley cat in heat at 2:00 in the morning.

It seemed purely selfish of the president to expect us all to sit through another one of his empty speeches after having the kind of year that we had—365 days worth of feeling disrespected, troubled, and insolvent.

While listening to all of the “we needs” in the president’s address, I wondered why there weren’t more “I needs” such as “I need to pay more attention to the interests of young people,” “I need to care less about what you all think,” or “I need to do all of what I said I would do during the campaign.”

From listening to the president’s address, I gathered that his biggest mistake during his first year in office was thinking that we all cared about the process, when in fact, many of us are just interested in the results.  If he hadn’t made this mistake, he would’ve realized that no matter how many times he’d come before the country trying to explain the process, mumbling $78 words like “transparency,” many of us would turn a deaf ear, only caring about whether he would deliver the goods—health care and a job.

I’ll admit that last night’s address was probably a good speech.  But ultimately, it was nothing more than a beautifully delivered wish list—an itemized set of hopes and maybes that the president has become too comfortable accepting as being enough to satisfy a first year presidential notion of change.

I suppose there is some joy in hearing the president mumble on and on about how “we need to invest in the skills and education of our people,” but I left his address not knowing what that even means for a president as communicatively gifted as he.  I’m also sure I should probably be thrilled about the president saying that we should “pass a bill that will revitalize our community colleges,” but now I’m at the point where I’ll believe it when I see it.

Maybe a year ago, our president could get far with just saying that he’ll fight for us, but now, just saying it wouldn’t get me to applaud, let alone stand on my feet.  Now when he actually has to do it, he stands before us like a moose in the headlights, and does the only thing he knows how—say it all again about 7 more times, never quite getting around to actually doing it.

As it seemed, other than his casual mention of a few wish list items that have something to do with student loan forgiveness, public service, and education, the president’s address was a large message to young people letting us know that we are permanently on the back burner.   The word “voters” is usually a code word for “everyone except young people.”

All year, young people had to watch the president pander to whiney mid-western 40 and ups complaining about the lack of oil and break fluid on their blue collars.  And all year we had to listen to the president try to gently carry white 40 and ups through their rust-belt racism.  And every month we had to live through the president having to calm down hysterical 40 and ups about the health care coverage they don’t have in the first place. And day after day, we had to look at the president politically make balloon animals like a clown at a first grade birthday party to calm the many temper-tantrums the 40 and ups had in the public polling. They all acted like children.

Much to no one’s surprise, the president has gone an entire year having done virtually nothing for young people.  We didn’t even get a mention in his first State of the Union Address.  Perhaps if we too acted 15 years our junior, we could get a little presidential attention.

In the president’s speech, he claimed to understand why there was so much disappointment and cynicism in the country, yet he doesn’t seem to notice that much of it is coming from us, the millennial generation (and beyond), the ones who came out in unprecedented droves to give him the winning edge.

But perhaps my dismay at all of the attention President Obama has given to the 40 and ups is unwarranted; our President is after all 48—a far cry from my generation.

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