I didn't expect much regarding President Obama's State of the Union address and I wasn't disappointed.

As far as delivery, Obama actually never gives a bad speech; as far as content, John Nichols at The Nation gave an insightful critique.   Here are some excerpts:

"Yet, Obama still did not seem to "get" the politics of the moment.

"Remarkably, the president clung to the hope for bipartisanship that was dashed at every turn in 2009.....

"This was not a rally-the-base speech.

"It was a speech that, at many turns, sounded as if it was written a year ago -- before Obama saw his domestic agenda blocked at so many turns.

"It was this tone-deaf quality that made Obama's speech a less-than-inspired statement.

"Even when Obama outlined what sounded like an activist agenda, he generally restated 2008 campaign promises that were not kept during his first year as president.

"In particular:

"* To suggest a commitment to job creation, he dusted off one of his presidential campaign's less-impressive position papers on using tax cuts to get small businesses hiring. In particular, the president called for eliminating capital-gains taxes on investments in small businesses and for giving small employers a tax credit for new hires.

"* He repeated old promises to create clean-energy jobs and to end aid to businesses that are off-shoring jobs and facilities.

"Obama seemed throughout the speech to be struggling to balance an understanding of the need for activist government -- especially in the struggle to reduce a brutal double-digit unemployment rate -- with a political calculation that he must mouth empty rhetoric about cutting taxes, capping spending and fretting about deficits. (Obama made his call for a freeze on domestic spending but drew giggles from all sides when he said it would not be implemented until next year.)

"The result was an address that, at too many turns, seemed either tepid or numbingly predictable -- and that at other turns was just plain wrong ("we need a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants.")

"The president should have made the Supreme Court's lawless decision the focus of his speech -- as part of a broader riff on what's wrong with Washington. But he didn't go for it.

"And that's the bottom line. In his first State of the Union address, the president should have gone for it. But he pulled a few too many punches, sounded a little too many old themes and fell a little too short of the mark.

"Instead of rallying the base, President Obama chose to preach the gospel of bipartisanship. Instead of offering America a bold new agenda, or at least an edgier style, the president chose to recall old themes. Instead of accepting that the approaches of 2009 did not work, the president signaled that they will be repeated in 2010."

That is called wooden-headedness* and is a recipe for disaster.

*Historian Barbara Tuchman described this mindset: "Wooden-headedness assesses a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions, while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs … acting according to the wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts."