奧巴馬將於週三發表首次國情諮文
美國政黨知識補課：State of the union, 國情諮文。按照美國慣例，每年年初，現任總統都要在國會做年度報告，闡述政府的施政方針，被稱爲“國情諮文”。 美國在開國初期，就有了“國情諮文”這種形式。經過幾百年的演變，“國情諮文”已經變成“總統駕馭與國會關係的一個基本手段和發揮國家領導作用的有力方式”，特別是電視直播的出現，使“國情諮文”從“空洞的政策演說演變成一項重大的遊說宣傳”。歷屆美國總統都非常重視“國情諮文”的作用，奧巴馬當然也不例外。美國媒體估計，他這一次國情諮文的重點將集中在經濟、工作機會和醫療改革幾個方面。
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."相關中文報道：奧巴馬將發表首次國情諮文 重點講醫改就業（摘自環球網）
美國總統奧巴馬將於當地時間27日晚9時（北京時間28日上午10時）發表上任後的首次國情諮文，屆時他將以何種方式向美國人民做出承諾，爲其在經濟及外交政策上面臨連串挑戰的第二年總統任期定調，成了媒體關注的熱點。
面對近期民望低落以及民主黨在重要選舉屢戰屢敗的狀況，奧巴馬試圖藉此次機會重申與民衆站在同一陣線，並把競選總統時掛在口邊的口號“Yes, I can”（是的，我能夠），改成更貼近現況的新口號“Yes, I get it”（是的，我知道了）。
重點講醫改創就業
美國媒體分析說，不過無論是此次的國情諮文還是隨後的預算計劃，奧巴馬都會將中心議題放在支撐經濟復甦之上。目前美國失業率高達兩位數，奧巴馬的支持率面臨上任以來的低點，國內政策挑戰重重，醫療改革舉步維艱。
對民主黨而言，演說內容也可成爲吸引選民的賣點，爲11月中期選舉鋪路。
白宮高級顧問阿克塞爾羅德透露，週三的國情諮文將花大篇幅講述醫療改革和創造就業，會提及財政赤字、金融改革、能源、教育及移民問題；在國家安全方面，奧巴馬將藉機尋求公衆對其外交策略的支持，其中包括將外交重點從伊拉克以及伊朗、朝鮮核武器問題轉移到阿富汗；此外也會涉及海地賑災、企業資助競選取消上限等熱點問題。
除了要向醫療和銀行機構特殊利益羣宣戰，大打民粹牌外，奧巴馬也會重申被遺忘的選舉承諾：改革華盛頓，重建誠信。然而分析認爲，當前民主共和兩黨分歧嚴重，恐怕這目標將更難達到。
“每當總統在過去一年裏發表講話時，所有派別的批評家都會給他定位。”美國聖母大學美國研究教授羅伯特·施默爾說，“就國情諮文來說，奧巴馬需要重新給自己定位，他在政治上代表着什麼，什麼又是他的核心原則和政策。”
“衡量能力的一刻”
在發表完國情諮文的五天後，奧巴馬將公佈其2011財政年度聯邦預算提案，希望達到刺激經濟復甦和提高工作機會的目的，削減高達兩位數的失業率。
“在衆議院會議廳向全國人民發表國情諮文時，奧巴馬其實站在向人民傳達信息的最大的舞臺上。”小布什的首席撰稿人邁克爾·格爾森說。他也表示，奧巴馬如何就上週共和黨人斯各特·布朗贏得美國馬薩諸塞州美國參議員席位做出反應，將奠定他在明年及未來的政治道路。
“這一刻所有人都在觀看，人們會在這一刻衡量他反應的能力。”格爾森說，奧巴馬的演說將會告訴選民和國會，“這是奧巴馬在麻省失利後的戰略。”
按照美國慣例，現任總統年初都會在國會發表年度報告，闡述政府的施政方針，這被稱爲國情諮文。國情諮文在美國開國初期被稱爲“聯邦情況”，亦稱爲“年度諮文”。美國首任總統喬治·華盛頓於1790年1月8日發表了第一份關於“聯邦情況”的報告。從1945年開始，“聯邦情況”報告開始被正式稱爲國情諮文。隨着電視直播的出現，美國總統的國情諮文從“空洞的政策演說”演變成一項重大的“遊說宣傳”。
