"Government should do for the people what they cannot do better for themselves"

Wonder of wonders, he may actually be on a roll.

As Digby said:

I have never been one of those who was mesmerized by Barack Obama's speeches. I don't know why. It's not that I disagreed with him particularly, but I just never felt the magic. But I think I liked today's speech more than any I've ever heard him give in a long time.

I didn't see it, I read it. And if he delivered it with any passion at all I'm hopeful that it signals that he's "turned the page" on his quixotic crusade to bridge the unbridgeable bridge between red and blue, at least for the time being. This was a speech in which he formally threw in the towel on kumbaaya, which is not only the best politics for the moment, it's long overdue.

I wish he'd left out so much about the deficit, but at least he acknowledged that the Democrats created a surplus that was frittered away on tax cuts for the wealthy. And while I understand the antipathy toward him using Republican heroes to demonstrate his own values it's smart to do it because it puts the Republicans on defense. (You know how mad it makes Democrats to have wingnuts use JFK as their own, right?) I'm not sure about Reagan "saving social security" but he did sign a huge tax increase to stabilize it for decades, so that's something I guess. Certainly, it's something that will drive the neo-libertarian tea partiers nuts. I like that.

It's a good speech, not much fatuous "Mission Accomplished", more "Stay The Course." But he puts the blame squarely on the Republicans for their obstruction, which regardless of the administration's own misapprehensions about the nature of the opposition and what was needed to pull the nation out of this awful slump, is good politics. It's too late to do fix the economy before the election, so playing the blame game is all they have. (It also has the benefit of being true.) Obama played it well today.

Watch it:



Read it here.