President Barack Obama is apparently going to give the State of the Union address tonight he should be giving in 2017.
Next year, after all, he'll be history, days away from returning to private life. With a new president, Republican or Democrat, already elected, the media, the public, and those for him or against him should be content to let him have his say. Partisan though such a speech would be, he'd be forgiven for fudging the truth: how the Affordable Care Act is such a success, what a foreign policy expert he'd become, how he'd tamed the oceans.
Instead, according to White House sources, Obama's going to start touting that legacy tonight. That fact, in and of itself, suggests State of the Union addresses ought to go the way of the passenger pigeon.
For years, through presidents of both parties, the nationally televised speeches have been nothing more than lists of policy suggestions that have no chance of passing, visions of returning to a country that can never be replicated, and, with the current president, partisan jabs that are unnecessary.
It's two hours of their lives that Congress members, cabinet members, the Supreme Court and viewers will never get back.
So get ready to hear what a fabulous year it's been for the chief executive. He'll talk about 5 percent unemployment levels but not the country having a labor participation rate similar to what it was in the late 1970s. He'll brag about a nuclear agreement with Iran but won't mention the Middle East terror sponsor already has violated the agreement and has no intention of sticking by it. And he'll say the world has stepped away from the brink of destruction with a climate treaty but won't reveal the treaty has no teeth.
Expect to hear about the Affordable Care Act and all it's done to help those who had no insurance, but don't anticipate any acknowledgment about the rise in insurance prices, both for those on Obamacare and those not, the losses of doctors or the elimination of long-held insurance policies.
Obama may venture into talking about what his administration is doing to stop the advancement of the Islamic State in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, actions that offered a brief bit of success last month. But don't look for him to compare the group to a "JV" squad again or talk about the dithering he has done over the Middle East region for most of his presidency.
The commander and chief may bring up his desire to regulate guns again, though he spent most of last week doing that, and without a lot of success. His town hall meeting on Thursday night, after all, exposed that he didn't know how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) worked and that the ATF budget had grown instead of being cut by members of Congress, as he alleged.
Obama could bring up immigration, but that's a topic where he's opposed by Republicans, where the public fears an outbreak of terrorism from refugees he's ushering in, and which his own party would just as soon he left alone.
The president also could venture into the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal still being negotiated, his diplomatic opening with Cuba, and his continuing desire to close the United States prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But none of those are slam dunks for him, either.
The trade deal, on which he has support from Republicans, is not widely supported by his party. Cuba, still a communist regime despite his entreaties, has said it has no plans to change. And the prison, the closing of which was going to be one of his first acts as president, remains vital for U.S. security and will be troublesome to close in his last year through his favorite method of executive order.
Since he didn't pivot as President Bill Clinton did when Republicans took control of Congress two years into his first term and attempt to achieve small measures of success, Obama has no chance to introduce new major legislation and see it passed. But, if he were of a mind to, he could use his last year in a more worthwhile effort than trying to plump up a positive legacy that deeds don't support.
For instance, he could spend the last year decrying the gun violence in inner cities and attempt to take steps to halt the movement of illegal guns. Or he could trade Republicans an increase in the minimum wage for a cut in the world's highest corporate tax rate among industrialized nations. Or he could give the go-ahead for heavy but limited action against the Islamic State, an effort on which he would have bipartisan support.
But sources say that's not what he'll do - that he'll double down on the efficacy of all the policies on which he has had little public support throughout his two terms in order that a successor might continue on the paths he started and govern in the way he governed.
Obama, in a preview video last week, told supporters this State of the Union message "will be for you." In actuality, it will be, as it always has been for this president, for himself.