These are the words that we always hear each year, just before the President begins to feed us a diatribe of well-spun reasons why we, Americans, are better, richer, more powerful, admired, beloved and luckier than anyone else…anywhere else on Earth. This year’s State of the Union began as always, but then, something quite remarkable happened. The President, (perhaps the most maligned and disrespected Chief Executive in history), simply, yet eloquently told the truth for one hour and nine minutes. What was so unusual was that hardly anyone, from either side of the aisle, (really more like an impenetrable wall), quite knew how to respond. The Democrats, wanting to appear supportive and to share in whatever reelection perks may accompany that support, clapped often, inappropriately and indiscriminately at almost every pause. The Republicans, and their new, fiscally asinine leader, Paul Ryan, sat on their hands and refused to give it up for such preposterous notions as: America being the most powerful nation, (by far), on Earth; as the US being the strongest economy in the world; or that we should make a moon-shot-like effort, once and for all, to cure cancer. Obama, undaunted, spoke with clarity, purpose and appropriate and natural humor to outline a common sense list of programs relating to public safety, economic fairness, and global responsibility with respect to climate change and radical extremism, citing, as the foundation for his stand on these issues, “because it’s the right thing to do.” He ended with the expected, “…the state of our Union is strong.” That came at one hour and ten minutes…his only lie.