{"id":233155,"date":"2010-01-25T20:35:07","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T01:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2010889828_stateoftheunion.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2010-01-25T20:35:07","modified_gmt":"2010-01-26T01:35:07","slug":"state-of-the-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/233155","title":{"rendered":"State of the Union"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>An open letter to Obama<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Editor, The Times:<\/p>\n<p>Wednesday, Mr. President, you will be giving your first official State of the Union address as president of these United States [\u201cIn State of Union, Obama has work cut out for him,\u201d page one, Jan. 24]. Before being called the State of the Union address, this speech was called \u201cthe president\u2019s annual message to Congress\u201d and I think you should return it to such.<\/p>\n<p>Please, stand up on Wednesday night and tell the American people that they are welcomed to listen but the message you have is not for them \u2014 but for the Congress. Turn to that joint body and tell them this is our last good chance \u2014 with the Supreme Court\u2019s recent ruling on campaign financing, we may not get another.<\/p>\n<p>Tell them that we must pass, via budget reconciliation, a health-care bill that will take effect in mere months, not years. The American people must feel the change swiftly.<\/p>\n<p>The time for bipartisanship is over. The Republican Party has demonstrated again and again that they will not work toward any common good that will be perceived as a \u201cwin\u201d by the Democratic Party. We attempted bipartisanship and since have heard nothing but complaints.<\/p>\n<p>We need the Republican Party for one thing, though: as a model of efficiency. We Democrats need to get in line and stop the infighting. We need to realize that getting some of what we need is better than getting none of what we want.<\/p>\n<p>Please, Mr. President, I think you are our last best chance, and I\u2019m afraid this is your last best chance.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014 Barbara G. Workman, Atascadero, Calif.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An open letter to Obama Editor, The Times: Wednesday, Mr. President, you will be giving your first official State of the Union address as president of these United States [\u201cIn State of Union, Obama has work cut out for him,\u201d page one, Jan. 24]. Before being called the State of the Union address, this speech [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2861,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}