First of all, remember that his only significant proposal made during the speech was to set up another task force, a pillar of big government. Considering the fate of the last task force (it did nothing), this is meaningless and will serve as little more than a facade behind which Obama can continue his uninhibited spending practices.
What makes this so bad is not that Obama failed to give a sufficient plan of his own, but that he spent a bulk of his time bashing the plan of one of the few people who are willing to take a stand: Paul Ryan going as far as calling it "un-American." Is Ryan's plan perfect? No, it does not cut enough and fails to take a strong enough position on Medicare, but it is a milestone in the right direction.
Is Ryan's plan popular? Certainly not to the vocal minority of fiscal liberals, yet Ryan took the initiative, created the plan, and has proven that it is absolutely necessary to prevent impending disaster.
So, Ryan was invited as a Presidential Guest to this speech. Sitting in the front row, he was then subjected to Obama's virulently partisan tirade. Painting Ryan as a monster proves that not only does Obama lack leadership in this arena, but that he has no idea of how to confront the problem of the deficit. Did it ever cross the mind of anyone in the administration that attacking a responsible American may not be the best course of action? To use cliches, not only does Obama not "have guts," but he chooses to attack one of the few who do.
It is quite poetic that after our President proved he was unwilling to control his spending, that S&P took a step that had never taken before. "Because the U.S. has, relative to its ‘AAA’ peers, what we consider to be very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness and the path to addressing these is not clear to us, we have revised our outlook on the long-term rating to negative from stable." Maybe this will finally teach Obama the meaning of "unsustainable," but I doubt it: it's so much easier just to raise taxes.
I feel bad for what Paul Ryan had to sit through: I can only hope that he goes very far in politics- for all of our sakes.
(P.S. For those of you who did not know, Ryan requires all of his staffers to read Atlas Shrugged. That's certainly a sign of a good congressman.)
