SOTU: Compromise cuts both ways

Diets of only red meat aren't healthy. So we were pleased to watch President Barack Obama and Iowa's freshman U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst push back from the table and strike a lighter tone of cooperation in this year's State of the Union address and response.

That said, we are patiently awaiting the dessert course. After all, the proof will be in the pudding.

'It wasn't about responding to the State of the Union or President Obama as it was responding to the concerns of Iowans and other Americans,” Ernst told reporters Wednesday morning of her nationally televised speech.

As Ernst said, 'It really is time for Washington to get back to work.”

We couldn't agree more, but old habits can be hard to break. And despite Ernst's repeated references to a 'new Republican Congress,” we note that more than three-quarters of the GOP Senate majority are returning lawmakers, at least partially responsible for the past gridlock they're now pledging to untangle.

It also wasn't lost on us that most of the examples Ernst presented were of how President Obama can cooperate with Republicans and their allies in Congress, not the other way around.

Likewise, it is difficult to swallow calls of unity from an executive branch that has issued a handful of veto threats during the first days of this fresh assembly.

'There are so many different things we can achieve if we are working together,” Ernst said, noting that President Obama has expressed interest is some GOP ideas, such as addressing the current tax system. 'We need to cooperate.”

But when we asked what she heard in the President's address that Republicans want to build on in that spirit of cooperation, she punted:

'Maybe not necessarily so much of what he addressed in his state of the union,” she said, before pivoting to concerns about Obamacare, saying that while it's true that more Americans are covered by insurance now, policies aren't necessarily affordable and Congress needs to work together to replace the law.

'Whether the president agrees with that or not, that is something we need to do,” she said, sounding quite like the past she's pledged to change.

'There are some issues that maybe we don't agree on, but we can work together,” she said. That is exactly what America needs.

But to do that, of course, you have to communicate with each other. To listen as well as talk.

' Comments: editorial@thegazette.com; (319) 398-8262