Pivoting to the Center: Obama's Shell Game

Distracting with one hand,

Picking pockets with the other.

...aka...

Saying one thing,

Doing another.

Update: FACT CHECK: Obama's SOTU and his imbalanced ledger

The ledger did not appear to be adding up Tuesday night when President Barack Obama urged more spending on one hand and a spending freeze on the other.

Obama spoke ambitiously of putting money into roads, research, education, efficient cars, high-speed rail and other initiatives in his State of the Union speech. He pointed to the transportation and construction projects of the last two years and proposed "we redouble these efforts." He coupled this with a call to "freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years."

But Obama offered far more examples of where he would spend than where he would cut, and some of the areas he identified for savings are not certain to yield much if anything.