President Shakes Nation with History-Making Address
Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 09:40AM 
President Obama Addresses Congress and the NationI always expect President Obama to give a good speech, but I was pleaseantly surprised by last night's State of the Union Address, which I believe may go down in history as one of the most effective in decades. Washington DC respects strength and last night our President took on the Supreme Court and the US Senate with grace, style and humor. He also explained his policies in clear and compelling terms and laid out an inspiring agenda for the next year.
Last night's speech laid down the gauntlet. If the Republicans only strategy is to create gridlock, President Obama will call them out on it and appeal directly to the American people to elect reasonable, toughtful leaders to Congress who are willing to put the public interest before their own political ambitions.
Anyone who filibusters the Presidents Jobs Bill or Climate Change legislation is now warned that they will be held accountable for their actions.
And somehow President Obama managed to get this tough message across without seeming heavy-handed. In fact, his admissions of mistakes and humble tone made his speeh all the more powerful.
If ever a speech can alter the course of history, this one is a strong candidate to do so. Now, with a little backbone from the Democrats in Congress and continued pressure from the President, we might make real progress toward President Obama's goal of a full-employment economy in 2010.
Reader Comments (4)
I agree complete Ken. It reminded me why I voted for him & why I still heart him big time. I was really thrilled to see that he prodded Dems to not give up on health care and reminded them of all the people suffering w/o insurance now, and that the problems in our system are not going to go away just bc congress punts. The op-ed in yesterday's Globe by Dan Payne talking about the exit polling of voters in Mass last week was very interesting in that it did NOT show that people want Scott Brown to go along with the republican party and do nothing on health care... so if he does that, he may have a very tough re-election fight in 2012.
I thought Obama was very funny last night. He had some great lines. I loved his quip "That's how budgeting works" when House Republicans were grumbling that his budget freeze (which I'm not too excited about) wouldn't start until 2011.
I agree Shawn that was a great line! I hear ya re the spending freeze but politically it's probably a smart thing to do. Obviously the real spending is in defense and entitlements which he's not touching (yet). The senate, as he said, already shot down the bipartisan deficit reduction commission, which is a bummer. He's got to tackle those tho.
Yikes I should really get to work today and stop commenting on Ken's blog but... just one more, I can't resist... huge problem for health care is that politically republicans think they benefit from stopping it. Obama called on them to serve the people not their own ambitions but like the movie said, the scorpion doesn't change his spots... or stop being a scorpion... ok i seem to be forgetting that really famous line but anyway you see what i mean, they're politicians bc they're ambitious and they'll see a win on health care as a sure win for Dems in 2010 and Obama in 2012 and R's don't want that!