What is implied but left unsaid is that China has become the new yardstick, comparison with which is the new criterion for measuring US success.

Wisely avoiding a blame game, Obama instead struggles to bolster a sense of American exceptionalism, invoking everything from the universality of US ideals to the implicit support of the Almighty in heaven above.

He cites things that supposedly set the US apart as a nation: "We do big things We're a nation that says 'I might not have a lot of money, but I have this great idea for a new company ... I might not come from a family of college graduates, but I will be the first to get my degree'..."

All of the above may be true, but can the same not be said for China and other countries?

Then he sounds a bit like former US president George W. Bush, recycling the swagger when he proclaims: "We have taken the fight to Al-Qaida" and "we will defeat you."

The mild-mannered Democrat can be triumphalist, too. "Tonight we can say American leadership has been renewed and America's standing has been restored."

But Obama generally has a gentler way with words than his predecessor. Consider this Orwellian euphemism for the bloody and inaccurate drone attacks on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border: "Their leaders and operatives are being removed from the battlefield."

At one point Obama complains that cutbacks make the US a plane without an engine, flying high because of the lightened load, but sure to soon "feel the impact". Is that a kamikaze joke? How about a "plane of state" that is not weighed down by heavy bombs on its wingtips? Wouldn't that be a more sensible way to soar to new heights?

A most inappropriate comparison is invoked when Obama - under whose negligent stewardship the American space program has scuttled plans for moon and Mars projects - declares that this is a "Sputnik moment".

It's more like a Sputnik yawn. A decade from now, if there are any men in space at all, it will be because China rose to pick up the challenge where the US left off.

A space race is not without political drama, but how much better it would be for all of us if the urge for competitive aggression, invasion and application of military know-how were played out exploring the moon and other uninhabited worlds, rather than pummeling the delicate, crowded planet Earth.

Obama closes with the usual religious pieties. But why, pray tell, should God bless America?

If there is a God, it is jarring to think that the Almighty would take so prejudiced an interest in political boundaries as to bless one nation at the expense of others.

Remember those balloons? Soon after the exhilaration of release, they drift out of sight, and then lose air and altitude. They shrink, shrivel, pucker up and then drop from the sky, one by one, with nothing but tattered bits of rubber to show for their once lofty promise.

The author is a visiting fellow in the East Asia Program, Cornell University, New York.