Obama Job Speech to Congress

Fascinated that there is no specific thread on The President's speech.
Anyone watch?

I did not and have read little about. From what I've heard from the cables this a.m. it sounds like there was nothing groundbreaking.

 

Nothing groundbreaking, but Obama sounded a bit angry. We watched it in my grad school class last night and I wanted to tell the nitwit sitting behind me who was yelling at Obama on every point to shut the hell up so I could list.

Did anyone catch Bachmann's response as Queen of the Tea Party?

 

I watched it. I didn't sense anger at all - I thought it was mostly a reaching out and a call for bipartisanship for a plan with bipartisan appeal. He even said that regulations should only be minimally engineered for safety and protection of the American people, for example. The entire plan is tax cuts, right? Boehner even clapped multiple times. I'm sure there were a few dog whistles in there that I missed - Brian Williams or David Gregory said afterward that there were lines directly aimed at certain GOP blocs.

It is extremely, extremely frustrating that everything right now has to be calibrated to win the White House for both sides. Sometimes I feel like there is no way that anything will get done with the economy until there isn't a looming election, because the cost of yielding political points right now is way too high. Too high for the Republicans to give Obama anything that resembles a victory. Too high for Obama to let the Republicans claim a policy victory over him.

Something obviously has to get done - as David Brooks put it this morning, short-term spending with long-term austerity built in - but as soon as I saw Eric Cantor's dumb face this morning giving some sort of boilerplate rebuttal, all my faith that was built up from the speech last night deflated.

 

Didn't think it was bad either, but it had the feel of him running for re-election than it did him actually having a great idea that can help people.

He almost seems desperate.

 

You're about the third person who I've heard say this, probably on this thread alone.

What gave you that impression? And how could he have structured the speech differently to avoid giving that impression?

 

Part of me wishes that one party would control all three entities - either party - just so something can get done already.

 

Well, he could have started it with, "I don't intend to run for re-election," which is the only thing that would make certain people happy*.

But I think it'll be entertaining to watch Republicans oppose policies they once endorsed, solely because they don't want to give an inch.

I expect to hear the "he's using the office to campaign" meme approximately 7 kabillion times in the next 14 months.

*-Others would welcome such an announcement, then immediately begin calls for him to resign, natch.

 

Save us, Fat Cash!

 

I remember reading something a few years ago where Obama insisted (paraphrasing) that he'd rather be a great one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.

I also remember thinking at the time that if all elected officials took office with that in mind -- work like hell for four years to get stuff done, even if it requires finding a middle ground with the "other side," then let the chips fall where they may come Election Day -- this country would be a lot better off.

Naive, I know. But the money, special interest corruption and continuous election-cycle posturing has made accomplishing much of anything all but impossible -- and I'm getting tired of simply throwing up my hands and accepting the F'ed up status quo.

 

I have a friend who loves, I think it is Polk, because he did exactly this as president.

 

Right. Short-term stimulus to get things going now. Long-term austerity to fix the fundamentals. That's kind of the point, no?

 

Frustrated with an unprecedented levels of Congressional gridlock and polarization -- just like the vast majority of Americans -- is the way I would characterize the tone, which is just right given the circumstances.