Question: Was this planned or is Barack Obama stealin' JK's best line from yesterday?

[beachmom]

http://twitter.com/#!/markknoller/status/11812096190713856

Obama will use speech to call on Congress & private sector to help America achieve - what he'll call "the next Sputnik moment."

To be clear, I think it is GOOD that he's taking the line.

[karynnj]

1. Planned in advance or planned after hearing Kerry yeaterday? - it's clearly

Obama and Kerry working together. Kerry has been using similar imagery for a while - with both alternative energy and the infrastructure idea - and it's an excellent analogy. I was a young girl when the "Sputnik moment" happened - too young to really understand it, but old enough that I saw it translate into a call to be the first on the moon. It was an incredible shock - at a point where it was assumed that America was number one. (Pretty obvious as the only major power whose economy was helped, not hurt by WWII.)

The good thing is that it is not just jingoism, but it addresses the reality that if we miss the train on all the new technologies, our workers likely will NOT be sufficiently better than those elsewhere to justify the far greater pay that is needed here. We have been poor on funding research - and in the mid 1980s, the government forced the breakup the company that was funding more pure research than any other company. That had a near immediate impact in shifting research to only those applied research projects likely to make money in the very near future.

It is good that Obama is using Kerry's phrase - because it is good - and Obama needs to get support for this. What is interesting is that it is so highlighted - as the very theme of the speech.

[Luftmensch067]

2. Actually, I think this is in the Beltway air at the moment

But it is a good phrase and we should all use it a lot!

Will China Win Clean-Energy Race? Chu Ponders ‘Sputnik Moment’ for US
Written by Jack Moore Green IT, Latest News Dec 2, 2010

In a speech this week, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the United States risked falling behind in the race to develop clean-energy sources.

The United States faces a “Sputnik moment,” in terms of clean energy, he said, referencing the launch of the Soviet satellite in 1957 that shocked American scientists and spurred the beginnings of the space race between the two rival nations.

read the whole article here:
http://www.executivegov.com/2010/12/will-china-win-clean-energy-race-chu-ponders-%E2%80%98sputnik-moment%E2%80%99-for-us/

[karynnj]

3. Interesting - this clearly is a intended Obama administartio theme!

[YvonneCa]

4. Planned. I think they have been working...

...as a team for a while. Thank goodness! :hi: