In the President's weekly video address filmed at a manufacturing plant, he starts by talking about his decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and then jumps into a political speech about the economy.
"It's in the best interest of America's security." -Obama
The debate about the U.S. role in Afghanistan is ongoing, however, Obama failed to mention his generals would have handled the draw down in Afghanistan differently as they expressed discomfort with the President's plan to withdraw 10,000 troops by the end of the year this week.
Moving onto the economy, unemployment sits at 9.1 percent, housing prices continue to fall, U.S. debt is nearly $15 trillion:
"We turned the economy in the right direction over the past couple of years." -Obama
Moving forward, it would be nice if President Obama could leave the military out of his push for high speed rail, "clean" energy, more government spending and his re-election bid. It would also be nice if Obama could make up his mind about whether technology is good or bad for job creation and considering Obama has given regulatory agencies like the EPA more power than ever, the U.S. manufacturing outlook is less than promising.
"There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don't go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you're using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate." -Obama June 14, 2011