Apocalypse? Not

Somebody needed to say it. The United States is no bad place.

Its economy is the soundest in the world. Its military is the strongest in the world by far. When people seek world leadership, they look to it.

The main thing wrong with it at the moment—and nothing is perfect—is that its poll-cowering and money-beholden politicians behave ridiculously and abhorrently and with the affront of utter dysfunction.

So President Barack Obama decided to go ahead and say it Tuesday night in his last and best State of the Union Address, one that a poll showed nearly seven in 10 listeners liking either a lot or a little—numbers unknown to him for years.

—————— A Republican columnist, Michael Gerson of the Washington Post, told CBS afterward that Obama’s message of optimism, mildly in the style of Franklin Roosevelt, played rather effectively as a contrast to the “apocalyptic” nature of modern-day Republicans.

“Apocalyptic” means you think the world as we have loved it is about to end tragically because of the horror that there are people who disagree with you on issues.

Since irony is my favorite subject, allow me to mention that the Republicans who are “apocalyptic” also crow about “American exceptionalism.”

Yet they present a presidential nomination front-runner who says the nation is anemic and pitiful and that it will remain so unless that front-runner takes over with the supreme command of Celebrity Apprentice.

Jeb Bush—remember him?—said several days ago that Obama is to blame for Donald Trump.

What he meant—other than that a Republican must blame everything on Obama—was that a walking caricature, one with a message of an America so failed that it would fall for a personal caricature, could rise to the extent Trump has risen only in a climate of despair for which Obama’s failed leadership was responsible.

A reporter asked Obama the other day if he was to blame for Trump. Obama said to ask him again after the election.

It was a fair answer. It’s unlikely that the nation will elect Trump. But if it should, then the evidence would be that the nation had so declined into utter despair and desperation that the man holding its presidency for the immediately preceding eight years would appropriately receive an ignominious place in American history.

House Speaker Paul Ryan had predicted Tuesday morning that Obama would give a glossed-over view of the last several years and set up straw men to destroy.

So what was the president glossing over?

Has the nation’s economy not improved from the one he inherited? Does our military not tower over everyone else’s? Does the world not look to us for leadership?

Republicans would say the economy has not improved sufficiently or with the right foundation. They would say we hamstring our great military. They would say the world doesn’t look to us so much as it takes advantage of us, meaning Russia in the Ukraine and Iran on the nuclear deal and Syria by scoffing at our president’s red line.

But the economy is going through an uneasy global restructuring quite on its own.

And whether and how to use our great military is always a matter of disagreement, and even debacle.

Vietnam was a political disaster. So was Iraq. That doesn’t mean the country is failed. It means our political leaders made mistakes.

JFK could have the Bay of Pigs and yet start us to the moon. Nixon could have Watergate and yet open doors to China. Clinton could have Monica and yet produce a budget surplus. George W. Bush could have Iraq and yet lead a nation in fighting AIDS in Africa.

But there’s something about Obama that has people deciding the United States has gone to hell in a handbasket because Vladimir Putin can’t be trusted.

As for Ryan’s prediction of straw men, it turned out the only enemy other than ourselves that Obama invoked was one he sought to downplay.

Obama lectured the nation wisely on ISIS.

He said that, yes, ISIS is a scary bunch. But he said it is not a nation forcing a world war. He said it was crazies riding around in the beds of pickup trucks. He said we need to root out and destroy it, and will, but not glorify it with exaggeration—or with disdain for the religion ISIS claims but defiles.

Making ISIS seem more than it is feeds into its appeal. Declaring a religion war feeds into its appeal.

Statistically, you are more likely to drown in your bathtub than to get killed by ISIS.

But let’s keep bathing, please. A great nation must insist on relaxing in warm water and staying clean, the

risks be damned.