"An organized mind at work is a wonderful thing to watch"

[babylonsister]

Obama: A Leader in the House
The state of the union may not be strong, but, judging from his speech to Congress, the state of his presidency is.
—By David Corn


Tue February 24, 2009 9:29 PM PST


An organized mind at work is a wonderful thing to watch. During his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, President Barack Obama placed the mind of his presidency on display, and it was wonderfully organized. The speech—a State of the Union stand-in—presented a clear, mostly left-of-center agenda for his presidency and a series of forceful rationales for his proposed actions. Obama offered all this up with a now-familiar fair dose of charm and grace. It's been years since any BMOC in Washington has presented such an extensive and well-articulated plan for—dare one say it—change.

This was a political speech, so it had the predictable elements: Americans don't give up, we'll pull together and rise again. But the strategic thrust of the speech was deftly delivered: Obama declared that the crisis—make that, crises—of the moment offers opportunities for fundamental shifts in national policies related to the economy, energy, education, and health care. In other words, the current calamity provides additional cause to proceed rapidly and ambitiously on these fronts.

At the start of the address, Obama said now was not the time to "lay blame" for the current predicament. But he did, noting that for years Washington—a.k.a. the George W. Bush administration—did little to deal with fundamental economic flaws, the nation's oil dependency, and the country's troubled health care system. "We have lived through an era," Obama said, "where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election. A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future." So now, he added, a "day of reckoning has arrived."

Thus, a young black guy stood before Congress and in front of an older white guy (Vice President Joe Biden) and a woman (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi) to lay out a road map for saving America.

Much of the first half of Obama's speech was devoted to a forceful, yet not partisan, defense of his first steps in office. He praised the passage of the stimulus bill. And as he did so, a televised moment occurred that could well come to symbolize the two parties: Democrats stood to cheer the $787 billion measure; Republicans kept their backsides in their seats. In the next election cycle—when the initial results of the stimulus legislation will be apparent—this image will likely be ammo for one of the two parties. (And when Obama referred to a provision that will provide tax credits for college tuition, many in the chamber applauded; Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, did not.)

Obama then hailed and explained his administration's preliminary endeavors to prevent the further collapse of the financial system and to address the mortgage implosion. He acknowledged that doling out billions to bad bankers is a hard sell. But, once again, he had a convenient foil: the Bush administration. He declared,

This time, {the banks} will have to clearly demonstrate how taxpayer dollars result in more lending for the American taxpayer. This time, CEOs won’t be able to use taxpayer money to pad their paychecks or buy fancy drapes or disappear on a private jet. Those days are over.

This not-too-subtle reference to Bush's botched bailout received a tremendous ovation. And Obama, not shying away from bad news, noted that propping up Wall Street will probably require more than the $700 billion or so already set aside. (He did not go into details about his various save-the-system plans.)

more...

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/02/obama-leader-house

[pipi_k]

1. You know what's really pissing me off?

Seeing the Republican jerkoffs saying that it was nothing more than a pep rally with Nancy Pelosi acting as cheerleader.


People say they want DETAILS on every single thing that's going to happen. I don't think anyone knows for sure how, or when, we'll see an improvement.

And here's the real ass-kicker for me:

Many of them live on faith that there's some invisible Sugar Daddy in the sky who does all these great things and there's a heaven and hell and holy poltergeists and little angels all dancing around on the heads of pins, but they can't spare a gram of faith that our economy can improve if we all work together to try and MAKE it work.

Hey, maybe they're all just sitting around praying for Super Sugar Daddy in the sky to come down and fix everything. I hope they're not holding their breaths or anything.

They had their chances to put a stop to the economic bleeding, but they didn't. They only added to the bloody flood. Now we're trying something different, and Obama is trying to get everyone on board and people, presumably, hate him so much they'd rather see the entire country FAIL.

Sick bastards.

As much as I hated Bush, I knew that wanting him to fail meant the entire country would fail as well.

[babylonsister]

2. Don't be so angry. Here's why. Even with details,

the rethugs are going to piss and moan and push back, unless they start having second thoughts. I'm to the point where I don't really care what they have to say. There's not a one of them that can surpass what we saw last night, a man who expressed himself so well and has proven he can and will walk the walk as well as talk the talk. This isn't junior high. The sooner the rethugs figure that out, the better. In the meantime, I say we leave them in the dust. :fistbump: