Thursday, January 28, 2010

Centrist Republican

I think Richard Cohen's response was also on target:
A speech is words. A State of the Union speech is a performance. President Obama had more than an hour’s worth of words Wednesday night, much of them moderate in tone, moderate in ideology and proposing programs -- tax cuts, more nuclear power plants - that could have come from the mouth of a centrist Republican, should any of them still exist. But it was his demeanor, his poise, his supreme self-confidence that spoke volumes. He was supposed to be chastened from the debacle in Massachusetts, but this was Obama’s best speech because it was, so far, his worst moment....

It was all so commonsensical. It was all so mature. For those moments, Obama seemed the only adult in the room, the one talking for all the American people, pleading not for this bill or that program but for decorum and civility. This is what a president should do. This is why he is head of state and not just of government, chief magistrate and commander in chief of the military....

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