Rap Sheet
Links on R&P from around the web
A Split in the State of the Union
posted on January 21, 2015At The Atlantic, Peter Beinart charts the evolution of President Obama’s State of the Union addresses from 2009 to 2015. The president’s cautious treatment of the economy turned into optimism about the course of domestic affairs, Beinart writes. “This year, however, just as Obama’s economic narrative reached its climax, his terrorism narrative quietly fell apart. As in past years, Obama boasted about having withdrawn troops from Afghanistan … But in a marked shift from previous years, he stopped claiming that all this had made America safer from terrorism. The discussion of al-Qaeda’s impending defeat ceased,” Beinart writes.