It’s the job you thought you’d retire from but now have lost; the business you built your dreams upon that’s now hanging by a thread; the college acceptance letter your child had to put back in the envelope.
Obama really showed his writer's touch with that last line. Very poetic.
In other words, we have lived through an era 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....And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day.
Well that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here.
Obama is focusing on the long term. Here, Obama begins to show us that he is marrying liberalism with a sense of responsibility. That is his greatest strength, and that lack of responsibility has been liberalism's greatest weakness, until now.
That is why I have asked Vice President Biden to lead a tough, unprecedented oversight effort – because nobody messes with Joe.
I love the way Obama can transition from humor to seriousness within a single paragraph. When was the last time you felt inspiration, laughter, and seriousness all within a state of the union address?
I understand that when the last administration asked this Congress to provide assistance for struggling banks, Democrats and Republicans alike were infuriated by the mismanagement and results that followed. So were the American taxpayers. So was I.
So I know how unpopular it is to be seen as helping banks right now, especially when everyone is suffering in part from their bad decisions. I promise you – I get it.
But I also know that in a time of crisis, we cannot afford to govern out of anger, or yield to the politics of the moment. My job – our job – is to solve the problem. Our job is to govern with a sense of responsibility.
Obama showed great honesty here, as well as great common sense. "We cannot afford to govern out of anger."
In each case, government didn’t supplant private enterprise; it catalyzed private enterprise. It created the conditions for thousands of entrepreneurs and new businesses to adapt and to thrive.
Exactly right. Its a nuanced point, but absolutely crucial, and not said enough.
It begins with energy.
I am ecstatic that Obama gets this.
But we are committed to the goal of a re-tooled, re-imagined auto industry that can compete and win. Millions of jobs depend on it. Scores of communities depend on it. And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.
This will not make Kunstler happy.
I think about Leonard Abess, the bank president from Miami who reportedly cashed out of his company, took a $60 million bonus, and gave it out to all 399 people who worked for him, plus another 72 who used to work for him. He didn’t tell anyone, but when the local newspaper found out, he simply said, ''I knew some of these people since I was 7 years old. I didn't feel right getting the money myself.”
The focus on a banker who actually did the right thing, at a time when bankers are getting crucified, was Classic Obama.
We are not quitters.
An interesting way to close. By itself, its not a very remarkable line. But borrowed from a poor black girl from South Carolina who must have been having the experience of a lifetime sitting next to Michelle Obama and hearing herself quoted by the President, I found it very moving.
To sum up, I have long been an economic pessimist, and I generally consider myself to be quite the cynic. But I will admit, after watching that speech, the thought crept into my brain, "hey, maybe things are gonna turn around faster than I thought. Barack's got this." The speech, in my opinion, was that good. And not because he glossed over our problems, but because he admitted them candidly but was able to show that solutions are out there if we will only be brave enough to struggle for them.
I still pinch myself and can't believe this man is president. We are lucky.
p.s. I guarantee you the Republicans are crapping themselves right now.
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