A president’s most powerful weapon with his citizenry is the bully pulpit. You command the media’s attention, you command the world’s attention. Your words are interpreted, analyzed and listened to. Until they’re not. Unfortunately, that seems to be where President Obama is: not listened to much and even he seems to be giving up.

When I voted for President Obama the first time he ran for president, I did it for a few reasons: I viewed him as a potential transitional leader; his campaign oratory showed me he’s capable of using the bully pulpit for good; and, I could not vote for a ticket that included Sarah Palin. The first two were the more important factors.

President Obama has demonstrated that he does not know how to use the bully pulpit well. And his staff knows even less.

Last night’s State of the Union was a petulant boy saying, “If you won’t help me, I’ll do it myself.” Bold words but the fact is the president does not have sufficient power on his own to take strong actions across the board when it comes to domestic policy. His “my way or the highway” threat I’m sure will be used well on the mid-term campaign trail. They now can even more blame the opposition for blocking his every whim (even though there’s a lot of truth to that). And that seems to be the primary goal: political advantage.

That is not a president’s job. That may be the national party chairman’s job, but not the president’s.

The President’s job is to lead. Not to convene commissions for show sake. Not to name his Vice President to yet another coordinating task that likely will lead nowhere. Not to announce a vague program aimed at helping lower income folks save money they don't have in the first place because they have no jobs in this weak economy. And our democracy was not established so a president could govern (rule) by presidential fiat. If I remember correctly, that’s one reason this country was created originally – to escape a King’s fiat.

Yes, there is a time that executive orders are appropriate. Many presidents have pulled that arrow out of their quivers. But you can’t affect an economy that way. Heck, there isn’t much, truth be told, the government can do to turn an economy. But it can help establish an environment that sends a message of: We can work together. We can improve things.  We’re with you. That’s what gives business – small and large--, investors and the average citizen confidence in their government which turns into confidence in the economy. A lot of a strong economy is believing the economy is strong.

Unemployment going down because people have stopped looking for jobs is not economic improvement. And while there clearly is a wage gap between men and women, as the Washington Post’s fact checker, Glenn Kessler, points out this morning, since women in general work fewer hours than men in a year, the statistics the President used may be less reliable for examining wage discrimination because the President used an hourly wage comparison.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the gap between men and women is 19 cents when weekly wages are compared and 15 cents when hourly wages are compared. Not every wage earner is paid on an hourly basis, so the statistic excludes weekly salaried employees. And since there are statistics available to prove most every point, there is a another study, by the Federal Reserve Board of St. Louis, that says “research suggests that the actual gender wage gap (when female  workers are compared with male workers who have similar characteristics) is much lower than the raw wage gap." They cite a survey prepared by the Labor Department that says when such differences are accounted for, much of the hourly wage gap dwindled, to about 5 cents on the dollar. All that according to Mr. Kessler.

So the President’s rhetoric, as intended, won strong applause from the (Democratic elected) women in his audience last night, the facts are a little different.

Bottom line: this State of the Union address, like many others before it, from both parties, wasn’t all that moving, or inspiring. Personally, I think after last year’s government shutdown – stupidly engineered by a minority of Republicans in Congress, failed – there was an opportunity for the president who, unlike Members of Congress, is elected by ALL the people, to step up and lead. To rally the public around him. Not rally his supporters, but rally everyone.

That’s what a president is supposed to do.

Pete Seeger passed away. And tonight is the State of the Union address.

Seeger as everyone knows was a poet of peace. A proponent for the common man and a fair, open and good society. Some may disagree with that description. And if so, so be it. His songs will be sung forever. His words will march on.

Why do I connect Seeger's passing to the State of the Union? Well, in some of the set-up pieces I’ve read about the speech, the lede often lays out how the president will use his speech to offer up an agenda – an agenda to use against Republicans in the mid-term elections. I don’t know if that’s how the White House is spinning the story. But it’s how the story is being spun.

Seeger stood for honesty and transparency. Folks could differ with his methods but not his aims. If the point of the State of the Union has become another weapon in the arsenal against the other side and not an hour or so when the President can lay out his agenda for the good of our society, then one might say the State of the Union died with Pete Seeger.

I read another piece that suggested that rather than a speech laying out all the good lines a president will use for a year or so against the other side, it should be stopped and should become a question-and-answer session, as is used in the British Parliament; a time when the opposition can openly question the prime minister about his policies and plans. An intriguing idea but with sound bites, competition for air time, etc., the question-and-answer session would become just another preening session, but one open to all congressional comers. In short, a good idea that won’t work.

For years the State of the Union was a written report the president submitted to the Congress. That’s all the Constitution requires. Over the last 40 years or so, it’s become a free hour in prime time for whoever is president to talk directly to the American people. It’s becoming a time when a president now talks only to his supporters, laying out their talking points for the coming election.

Used to be a time when the State of the Union was a time a president laid out an agenda, broad or specific, for the direction he wanted to take the country. I’d like to go back to that time.

Pete Seeger wrote about cycles in the classic “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.” Let’s remember it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXqTf8DU6a0

Nothing wrong with cycles.

Let’s play a game. I’ll say a name and you tell me if he’s a thug, a pug or a slug. So we agree here are the definitions:

Thug: A brutal ruffian

Pug: A lovable but bad boxer

Slug: A lump

Okay, here goes:

Vladimir Putin: thug, pug or slug

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christe: same question

Former Virginia  Gov. Robert McDonnell: ditto

For me, the jury, literally, is still out on McDonnell. My guess is he’s a slug. Federal prosecutors tend to overstep their boundaries to grab a headline. Virginia law allows most of the gifts the McDonnell’s took, which I guess is why it’s a federal indictment. My guess is the former governor is a slug, though. He apparently has a wife who likes the finer life, and who sought it despite his pleadings to just say no. They shouldn’t have taken the gifts but are they law breakers? Ethically challenged for certain, law breakers, not so sure.

Christie, well, the jury is out, too. So far I’d put him in the pug category on the bridge shutdown issue. He’s a fighter for sure, and a can appear to be a bully. But did he order or know about the shutdown of the lanes on the GW Bridge? Dunno.

Putin, well, we know he’s at best a thug. But to fight for having the Olympic Games in Sochi, well, he’s a thug that made sure his cronies profited, he’s a thug that put the games in a place that, if they come off without serious incident, he’ll look better than he is, but who still put the world’s athletes, media and fans in grave danger. Danger? No, grave danger (as Jack Nicholson said in “A Few Good Men.”)

Maybe worse on that issue is the International Olympics Committee which granted the games to Putin when it knew Sochi is a gravely dangerous place. Exactly what was the committee thinking? Those games will be a success if no one is injured because of non-athletic reasons. Putin will “look good,” I guess, if his police can prevent such an incident. But maybe a real leader wouldn’t have put so many people at risk in the first place.

Thugs, pugs, or slugs? Time will tell.

Chris Christie is getting an early dose of the attention one attracts when one runs for president. Welcome to the NFL, as they say. So far, Christie is learning great lessons on this front at the right time, before he formally announces his intent as a candidate. He’s learning:

What to say and how to say it; how to set expectations; how to take decisive action quickly.

So far, so good. As long as nothing incriminating comes out. And that’s where I get a little foggy.

Having worked on staffs of politicians and knowing, I hope, what a “loyal” staffer does and how he or she acts, and also seeing how others handle that responsibility, I find it hard to believe, taking all that into account, that no one on his staff told him, bragged, intimated or covered his ass about shutting down a few lanes of traffic on the most travelled bridge in the word.

If the story as we know it is true, someone “loyal” to the governor ordered the lanes shut down. We saw the emails written in true Tony Soprano style: “Time for some traffic problems”

A loyal staffer would never have taken that action without some signal of approval from the boss. At least in my experience.

If you are the type of “loyal staffer” who would, you likely would be sure you got some credit for doing it. If you are the type of “loyal staffer” who questioned if that was the correct action, you would have covered your ass and found a way to let the boss know what you were doing. Especially under the circumstances: working for a high visibility governor positioned as a front-runner for president; a guy known as tough-talking and straight-shooting; a guy who places so much emphasis on loyalty that he spent most of a two-hour press conference, when he should have been apologizing, talking about loyalty and how he was betrayed. On the other hand, if you truly are a “loyal staffer,” you never would have done it.

So, I’m having trouble accepting that somehow Christie wasn’t aware of what was going on. Don’t get me wrong, I hope I am wrong. I want to believe a guy like Gov. Christie is real – a strong, straight-talking elected official who tells it like it is. I crave such an elected official, as I think most of us do. Unfortunately, we've all been prepped to be skeptical.

Chris Christie is very angry that his staff lied to him. He should be.

And, for the sake of our political ethics (there are two words you don't see together ever). let's hope that Gov. Christie didn't know any more than what he's saying he knew. I've never been convinced Gov. Christie should be president, but that's what campaigns are for. If he runs, he needs to lay out his vision for the country's future. He will have a record as to how he conducts himself in office thanks to his years as governor.

That record will include his words at yesterday's press conference. If no other shoes drop, I think he will have comported himself quite well. He fired a close staffer, he told another friend to not run to for state party chair and to end his consultancy with the Republican Governors Association which Christie now heads. He took responsibility, took action, went to Fort Lee and apologized to the mayor and the citizens there.

I'm not sure what else he could have done at this stage except maybe make it clearer that he was more upset about the inconvenience to commuters than to his staff lying to him.

The only thing that will hurt him beyond this is if he has lied at all about what he knew and when he knew it. No reason to believe otherwise as we speak, but you can be sure that with lawsuits pending and with the Democrats in the state legislature reviewing this matter, if anything hasn't come out, it will. I have to believe Christie is a smart enough pol to know that and that he isn't hiding anything.

In a way, if nothing else comes out, this episode, politically, may wind up helping him. When wrongs were pointed out, he took quick and decisive action. And that's what we want from our leaders, isn't it?

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie' 15 minutes may be over. Dennis Rodman's were over years ago.

Not to put the two in the same sentence, but I'ill put them in the same blog post.

Christie is caught up in a scandal involving an apparent petty payback over a Democrat mayor's refusal to endorse the governor's re-election last year. Christie is a Republican. Now I don't pretend to ever have understood New Jersey politics -- I've taken the position to just "fergitaboutit" -- but a Democrat mayor not endorsing a Republican does not seem an outrage to me. Especially in a year when Christie was expected to win, and did, big so what difference did the endorsement make?

Allegedly in retaliation, Christie senior staffers ordered a shutdown of a couple of lanes on the George Washington Bridge (which, I believe, is the most traveled bridge in the world) at the beginning of September (meaning not just rush hour jam ups but rush hour plus returning school buses jam-up). Christie denied his office was behind the snarls. Then two senior staffers resigned and, yesterday, emails came to light showing  his senior staff did order the traffic jams but not, yet, showing any culpability by the governor.

The jury is still out on whether Christie was involved or "just" his top people. Whichever, the buck stops at the governor's desk. Christie has polished an image as a tough-minded governor who speaks his mind -- to everyone. Constituents, reporters. He, in some conservatives' minds, thumbed his nose at GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romeny  mid-campaign when, in the middle of a natural disaster in his state, he welcomed President Obama with open arms when he toured the damaged areas. Some consider him a bully and some believe that is the image he wanted (there's a grey border between bully and speak your mind).

He immediately was put literally in the lead for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination off that image. Now, that image is the thing that may just cut his presidential knees off. No one likes a bully.

Rodman, well I won't waste much space on him. He is a former very good pro basketball player who always was "weird." Dyed his hair all kinds of colors, pierced his body in places that make most of us cringe and was, well, weird. He played on the Michael Jordan Chicago teams so his role as a "support" player was huge. He's finished playing ball and has become BFFs with Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, one of the most notorious leaders in the world, who recently had his own uncle killed because the uncle was trying to more open the Korean society.

Rodman parties with the leader and is over there celebrating Kim's birthday. Rodman brought some former pro basketball players to play a game for him, too. Then, Rodman, on a CNN broadcast press conference, freaked out, yelling about how Kim is right to be holding an American prisoner, who was arrested on questionable (for normal countries) charges and now is literally wasting away in a prison in the face of humanitarian and family cries for his release. In short, Rodman defending the little dictator on global TV. Today, Rodman said he was drunk during the press conference. Oh, OK, never mind then...he was drunk.

If being drunk becomes an acceptable excuse for unacceptable behavior, Katie, please bar that door.

It is really, and I mean REALLY cold outside. That's the weather report no matter where you live in the lower 48 today. There are single digit temperatures in Florida! In Atlanta, as I write this (noontime in DC) it is 7 degrees. My back porch was 9 degrees this morning and we are experiencing a heat wave right now of 15 degrees.

 An escaped prisoner came in from the cold (dang, he wasn't a spy; would a been a great example) and turned himself in, in Kentucky, because he sought the warmth of his jail cell. It's true. I did not make that up. I wish I was that creative.

This is life-threatening cold. And it's funny, but not.

And we haven't even talked wind chills yet. So, let's just skip that topic.  There are some fun experiments to try. NPR listed some today and there's video of them (like tossing boiling water in the freezing air, what happens; or, blowing bubbles). Here's the link:  

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/01/06/260188337/dont-just-shiver-here-are-3-cold-weather-experiments-to-try

Many of us will experience dead car batteries, broken pipes and more.

Just bundle up if you have to go out. And try to keep your sense of humor.