The Obama Speech

Joe: I listened/watched the whole speech and give him high marks for clarity. I want him to succeed and I take his point about how quite a few things have to be changed (health, education, infrastructure) to make things better. Then I saw Stuart Varney on a Crooksandliars piece from FoxNews and realised that he had problems when an idiot like Varney went on and on about Obama’s 2 trillion $ spending. It was like nothing happened here before Nov 2008. The Republicans and their FoxNews chorus are well on their way to becoming the Rump Party.

Ezra likens Obama to a History professor but I suspect that part of that perception just comes from his relative youth. For those of us who were already adults by the time Reagan took office, what Obama offers are simple facts generally known. Certainly the obsession with deregulation started in the 80′s and continued unabated even through the Clinton years. Certainly the forceful denial of our Oil addiction started in the 80′s and continued unabated even through the Clinton years. Certainly the growth of the wealth gap started in the 80′s and continued unabated even through the Clinton years.
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Conservatives during the campaign liked to compare Obama to Jimmy Carter. They meant it as an insult but the fact remains that Jimmy Carter’s primary weakness was that he wasn’t willing to lie to the American people about what could be accomplished and what was necessary in order to acheive sustainable growth.
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related:
http://phd9.blogspot.com/2009/03/random-comments.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/phd9/3409444758/

Holy crap; that’s a good speech. It’s really, really good.
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I don’t even agree with the Administration on many items he addresses, and I’m persuaded –if there is sufficiently aggressive oversight– that there is a plan that may work to restructure the American economy toward sustainable prosperity.
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Will the venal and craven Congress now work against this plan, and will the American people allow Congressional obstruction of this good faith effort to solve core structural problems –if it truly is Obama’s firm intent to address structural problems– by standing idly by while their representatives fail to represent American interests?

Well clearly it beats the GOP’s we want tax cuts because it’s the Republcian way argument.

Paul, I think you’re giving the people too much credit in your assertion that all of the facts are known. I’m sure most of the people know some of the facts. A few even may know all of the facts; however, what this speech is doing is putting those facts in order to give them the whole view of what’s going on.

As Stuartzechman said, it’s a good speech. What the majority of people need is a dose of perspective about what happened, why it happened and why we need to do what we’re doing. Not everyone is going to agree with the course of action, but I think if enough people pay attention to this speech and what the President is saying, Congress will have to take notice and take some action. There’s nothing more threatening to a politician than a well informed public. There’s also nothing more dear to a politician than his job (he’d probably, and probably already has, sold his soul to maintain it).

Here’s a very good critique of the speech over at Digby’s.

[...] Time: Joe Klein says the speech was “quite good.” [...]

Obama will talk the pants off anyone who is willing to listen to a teleprompter and sing: “I’m a Believer, I’m a Believer, yea, yea I’m a Believer.” And Joe Klein sings it so well.

[...] The Obama Speech [...]

[...]  The Obama Speech [...]