奥巴马将于周三发表首次国情咨文
美国政党知识补课：State of the union, 国情咨文。按照美国惯例，每年年初，现任总统都要在国会做年度报告，阐述政府的施政方针，被称为“国情咨文”。 美国在开国初期，就有了“国情咨文”这种形式。经过几百年的演变，“国情咨文”已经变成“总统驾驭与国会关系的一个基本手段和发挥国家领导作用的有力方式”，特别是电视直播的出现，使“国情咨文”从“空洞的政策演说演变成一项重大的游说宣传”。历届美国总统都非常重视“国情咨文”的作用，奥巴马当然也不例外。美国媒体估计，他这一次国情咨文的重点将集中在经济、工作机会和医疗改革几个方面。
Obama Expected to Recast Presidency at State of the Union
President Obama's first year played out like a political version of Space Invaders, with the administration trying to shoot down all the advancing problems with a fusillade of rhetoric and policy proposals.
So when the president takes center stage for his first official State of the Union address on Wednesday, he will have that rare chance to define his presidency. He will be able to choose a theme, much as he did during his successful presidential campaign, and narrow down the list of priorities that cluttered his agenda in 2009.
While Obama has gotten Congress to vote his way on an impressive number of items, his big-ticket goals have largely gone unfulfilled, and recent high-profile Republican wins in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts underscore the distance voters have put between themselves and the president's party. Obama's approval rating now hovers at around 50 percent.
Going into year two, political strategists expect the president to re-center himself Wednesday as a hard-fighting, bank-busting, Obama-on-your-side jobs president, while acknowledging the hiccups in getting to this point.
At the State of the Union, the state of the presidency may be the question that most needs answering.
"It's going to be jobs, jobs, jobs. Economy, economy, economy," said Democratic strategist Joe Trippi. "Year two's gonna be this guy."
The White House says the speech will center on job creation and fiscal responsibility, among other issues.
Obama appeared to preview the contents and tone of that speech with his remarks over the past week. Coming off the Democrats' loss in the Massachusetts Senate special election, the president pivoted to take on Wall Street, assuming a fiercely populist tone as he proposed extra layers of financial regulation. On Friday, during a town hall meeting in Elyria, Ohio, he offered a fulsome defense of his administration's economic agenda -- ticking off the results of the stimulus package and his efforts to save the U.S. auto industry.
He called for new job creation measures, and on Monday he proposed doubling the child care tax credit for families earning under $85,000 and capping student loans payments.
"I did not run for president to turn away from these challenges. I didn't run to kick these challenges down the road. I ran for president to confront them -- once and for all," Obama said Friday.
The American people may need some reassuring, after Scott Brown's upset victory in Massachusetts sent Democrats into a frenzy to check the pulse of health care reform -- which up to that point seemed to be on the verge of passage. In the wake of Brown's win, Democrats acknowledge the bill cannot pass the House in its current form.
This leaves the president's signature domestic policy initiative, the mission the administration surely wanted to declare accomplished during Wednesday's address, on the ropes. How that initiative now fits into the president's broader, refocused economic agenda will certainly be a topic in the State of the gh White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is offering few details, some expect Obama to reach for genuine middle ground on the issue, particularly given the party's loss in Massachusetts.
"That's the moment for a grand presidential gesture, where he reaches out to Republicans and says, 'Let's do these five things,'" said Jeremy Mayer, public policy professor at George Mason University.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said he expects Obama to take a somewhat conciliatory tone, as President Bill Clinton did in his State of the Union speech following the Republican blowout in the 1994 midterm elections.
"(Clinton) actually worked very closely with Newt Gingrich. They had almost a bipartisan government for a couple years," Giuliani said. "Whether (Obama's) capable of doing that, we will find out. If he's not, I don't see any way in which we don't see a repeat of the last three elections ... in November."
Gibbs said last week that Obama will "undoubtedly" address the results of the Massachusetts election in his speech. Obama on Friday acknowledged health care talks hit a "little bit of a buzz saw."
But he and his advisers have made clear that they have no plans to shelve health care reform. "I'm not going to walk away just because it's hard," Obama said Friday.
The stalling of health care reform was just the latest blow to the Obama administration.
Obama failed to meet his one-year deadline to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center; Iran did not meet his administration's one-year deadline to pull back on its nuclear program; the future of energy legislation is uncertain, though it passed the House last summer; the Middle East peace process has not advanced measurably; and the attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas and the Fort Hood massacre exposed shortcomings in the ability of the national security infrastructure to flag potentially dangerous individuals.
And despite campaigning for the Democratic candidates in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races, and in the Massachusetts Senate race, Obama's party lost all three of those races -- plus the president was unable to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago, losing that bid to Rio de Janeiro during the host-city selection in Copenhagen.
Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh said that while the administration has notched several accomplishments, it has been dealing with a crisis overload. The months-long review of the Afghanistan war strategy over the summer and fall was another drain on the administration's Time and attention.
"I don't envy them. He walked into the presidency and they've been drinking out of a fire hose for a year," Marsh said. "They've done many, many things well. The problem is the thing people are focused on more than anything is -- Do I have a job?"
Obama, in an interview with ABC News last week, said his full plate distracted from his ability to convey his agenda to the American people.
"If there's one thing that I regret this year, is that we were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us, that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values," he said. "And that I do think is a mistake of mine."
He also told Time magazine he overestimated the administration's ability to bring the Israelis and Palestinians back to peace talks.
Obama's own second-guessing doesn't mean he's trying to start his second year with a clean slate -- at least, according to his advisers.
Asked Monday if the president is hitting the "reset" button, Gibbs said, "No."相关中文报道：奥巴马将发表首次国情咨文 重点讲医改就业（摘自环球网）
美国总统奥巴马将于当地时间27日晚9时（北京时间28日上午10时）发表上任后的首次国情咨文，届时他将以何种方式向美国人民做出承诺，为其在经济及外交政策上面临连串挑战的第二年总统任期定调，成了媒体关注的热点。
面对近期民望低落以及民主党在重要选举屡战屡败的状况，奥巴马试图借此次机会重申与民众站在同一阵线，并把竞选总统时挂在口边的口号“Yes, I can”（是的，我能够），改成更贴近现况的新口号“Yes, I get it”（是的，我知道了）。
重点讲医改创就业
美国媒体分析说，不过无论是此次的国情咨文还是随后的预算计划，奥巴马都会将中心议题放在支撑经济复苏之上。目前美国失业率高达两位数，奥巴马的支持率面临上任以来的低点，国内政策挑战重重，医疗改革举步维艰。
对民主党而言，演说内容也可成为吸引选民的卖点，为11月中期选举铺路。
白宫高级顾问阿克塞尔罗德透露，周三的国情咨文将花大篇幅讲述医疗改革和创造就业，会提及财政赤字、金融改革、能源、教育及移民问题；在国家安全方面，奥巴马将借机寻求公众对其外交策略的支持，其中包括将外交重点从伊拉克以及伊朗、朝鲜核武器问题转移到阿富汗；此外也会涉及海地赈灾、企业资助竞选取消上限等热点问题。
除了要向医疗和银行机构特殊利益群宣战，大打民粹牌外，奥巴马也会重申被遗忘的选举承诺：改革华盛顿，重建诚信。然而分析认为，当前民主共和两党分歧严重，恐怕这目标将更难达到。
“每当总统在过去一年里发表讲话时，所有派别的批评家都会给他定位。”美国圣母大学美国研究教授罗伯特·施默尔说，“就国情咨文来说，奥巴马需要重新给自己定位，他在政治上代表着什么，什么又是他的核心原则和政策。”
“衡量能力的一刻”
在发表完国情咨文的五天后，奥巴马将公布其2011财政年度联邦预算提案，希望达到刺激经济复苏和提高工作机会的目的，削减高达两位数的失业率。
“在众议院会议厅向全国人民发表国情咨文时，奥巴马其实站在向人民传达信息的最大的舞台上。”小布什的首席撰稿人迈克尔·格尔森说。他也表示，奥巴马如何就上周共和党人斯各特·布朗赢得美国马萨诸塞州美国参议员席位做出反应，将奠定他在明年及未来的政治道路。
“这一刻所有人都在观看，人们会在这一刻衡量他反应的能力。”格尔森说，奥巴马的演说将会告诉选民和国会，“这是奥巴马在麻省失利后的战略。”
按照美国惯例，现任总统年初都会在国会发表年度报告，阐述政府的施政方针，这被称为国情咨文。国情咨文在美国开国初期被称为“联邦情况”，亦称为“年度咨文”。美国首任总统乔治·华盛顿于1790年1月8日发表了第一份关于“联邦情况”的报告。从1945年开始，“联邦情况”报告开始被正式称为国情咨文。随着电视直播的出现，美国总统的国情咨文从“空洞的政策演说”演变成一项重大的“游说宣传”。
