Obama dismisses terror threat in legacy speech

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama basked in favorable economic statistics, pointed fingers at divisive politics, and denied terrorism is America’s greatest threat in his seventh and final State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

“Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction,” Obama said. “America, right now, has the strongest, most durable economy in the world.”

In a nod to some of the rhetoric coming out of the 2016 presidential campaign, Obama called for Americans to be less divisive when talking about Muslims and not cast negative dispersions on the entire religion because of terrorist groups such as Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL).

“We [cannot] push away vital allies in this fight by echoing the lie that ISIL is representative of one of the world's largest religions,” he said.

The president spoke of ISIS only briefly and placed responsibility for its demise on Congress. He said if Congress wants to be serious about winning the war against ISIS and other terrorist groups they should authorize the use of military force against them.

Just hours before the address, news broke in the Middle East that Iran detained 10 U.S. sailors who accidentally crossed into Iranian waters. The capture threatened to overshadow the speech, but the president made no mention of the incident. In fact, he spoke very little of Iran at all, although the country dominated political discourse for part of 2015.

In a bid to lay the groundwork for his legacy, Obama said he did not want to talk about next year, or even the next 10 years—he wanted to address the next generation of Americans. He used that far look into the future to criticize the country’s fractured political system.

“The future we want … will only happen if we fix our politics,” Obama said.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley gave the Republican response and made it clear her party was not swayed by the president’s rhetoric.

“Obama’s election as president seven years ago … inspired millions of Americans,” Haley said. “Unfortunately, the president’s record has often fallen far short of his soaring words.”

She pointed particularly to his lack of leadership in combatting terrorism. During the address, Obama endured several boos when he said the notion of America getting weaker and its enemies growing stronger is simply political hot air—a message to win elections.

“We are facing the most dangerous terrorist threat our nation has seen since Sept. 11, and this president appears either unwilling or unable to deal with it,” Haley said.

Other members of Haley’s party sang the same tune when asked about Obama’s foreign policy.

“Right now our biggest adversary is our indifference and our complacency to reality,” said Rep. Robert Pittenger, R-N,C. “The reality is ISIS and others, they are all being very provocative. … We are perceived as weak, and we are strategically weak.”

The president began his address with a hat tip to new House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., whose invited guests included two members of the Little Sisters of the Poor, the Catholic nuns whose challenge to the president’s signature healthcare reform law will come before the U.S. Supreme Court later this year. Obama did not make mention of the Sisters during his speech, which did not go unnoticed in the House chamber.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., hosted Oklahoma Wesleyan University president Everett Piper, who stands with the Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious nonprofits in their fight against the Affordable Care Act. Oklahoma Wesleyan University is one of several Christian schools also challenging Obamacare. The combined cases will determine whether Obamacare’s mandate for employers to provide coverage for contraceptive and abortifacient drugs extends to private universities and charities.

“The Obama administration is telling the woman who work at my university that they are not intelligent enough to choose the health care product that they want, the contraception they should or should not avail themselves of,” Piper said after the address. “Over 50 percent the American women do not agree with abortion, shouldn’t they have a voice at the table?”