Jan 13, 2016 4 min read

We have grown to expect candor and insightful observation when U.S. presidents who are twice elected to office give their final State of the Union speech.

When Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama stood before Congress in the first month of their eighth year in power, they were no longer the campaigning politicians to whom we had grown so accustomed. They were all beginning their exit, looking over their shoulders at their accomplishments and failures and looking ahead to a future in which they would have vastly less influence on the lives of people everywhere.

After seven years as the leader of the Free World, seven years in perhaps the most difficult job on earth, seven years of crushing responsibility, these men were in a position to share with all of America the wisdom acquired in their peculiar position of authority.

Too often, however, the insight they shared is not what we recall. We remember, instead, the ritualistic partisanship so evident in the State of the Union address: Democrats on one side of the chamber, Republicans on the other; the president delivers a chest-thumping list of achievements, each greeted by a standing ovation on one side and silent scowls on the other. Bold goals are set and outrageous promises made, answered, again, by cheers on one side, rolling eyes on the other.

We, the media, ignore insight and seize upon whatever controversy can be created by the sound bites we collect.

The media jumped on Obama’s remarks about the treatment of Muslims because they seemed directed at presidential hopeful Donald Trump, object of their current obsession. We’ll hear that one sound bite over and over again: lost are much more important words from our president. Here are a few of them:

• … “We need to reject any politics that targets people because of race or religion. This isn’t a matter of political correctness. It’s a matter of understanding what makes us strong. The world respects us not just for our arsenal; it respects us for our diversity and our openness and the way we respect every faith. His Holiness, Pope Francis, told this body from the very spot I stand tonight that ‘to imitate the hatred and violence of tyrants and murderers is the best way to take their place.'”

• … “As we focus on destroying ISIL, over-the-top claims that this is World War III just play into their hands. Masses of fighters on the back of pickup trucks and twisted souls plotting in apartments or garages pose an enormous danger to civilians and must be stopped. But they do not threaten our national existence.”

• “We have to end the practice of drawing our congressional districts so that politicians can pick their voters, and not the other way around.”

• “A better politics doesn’t mean that we have to agree on everything. This is a big country, with different regions, attitudes and interests. That’s one of our strengths, too. Our Founders distributed power between states and branches of government, over commerce and foreign relations, over the meaning of liberty and the imperatives of security.

“But democracy does require basic bonds of trust between citizens. It doesn’t work if we think people who disagree with us are all motivated by malice, or that our political opponents are unpatriotic. Democracy grinds to a halt without a willingness to compromise; or when even basic facts are contested, and when we listen only to those who agree with us. Our public life withers when only the most extreme voices get attention.”