Assessment of President Obama's first year and reaction to his first State of the Union address

I felt strongly from the moment I saw Barack Obama give the keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention that he would make a wonderful president. I was thrilled when he decided to run and I was thrilled when he won, and by such a hearty margin.

I have also been extremely impressed with the job he has done in his first year. He has taken the job seriously and actively and, as he put it last night, acted on what he thought was necessary and not on what was popular. He is a brilliant man and he chose a cabinet that reflects that brilliance. He and his administration have worked consistently through the year to implement legislation that would respond to the needs of the country. Just a brief visit to the White House website is evidence of this. The site is thorough, detailed, transparent, and visually appealing. And although the recent loss of Ted Kennedy's senate seat to Republican, Scott Brown, plus other errors have been less than impressive, the overall effort by the current administration is impressive in the extreme compared with the eight years of folly and relative lethargy of the George W. Bush administration. We now have a president who knows what to do with the job and acts with that knowledge. And even though public sentiment at the moment reflects otherwise, I think that President Obama and his administration are doing a superb job considering the daunting tasks awaiting them when they took office due to the damage that was done to the country by the previous administration.

I was equally impressed with the president's first State of the Union address on January 27th, 2010. Not only is Barack Obama a highly skilled orator in general, but he is superb at communicating his points and ideas clearly, concisely, and emotionally both to a large scale audience and in a warmly personal style. He delivered his speech last night in this fashion too and it was reminiscent of more of the style of some of his best campaign speeches. I thought he was very fair in stating his accomplishments while admitting his errors. I also thought that he was welcoming and encouraging with both the political parties to continue to put aside their political differences in order to more effectively deliver helpful solutions to the American public.

I have thought many times that the country has a "Golden Opportunity" in Barack Obama and I still do. I only hope that we as a nation grow to recognize this.