I confess that I've always been strangely immune to the Obama speech magic for some reason, but he always puts at least one thing in them that I like. Tonight, it was this:
To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills. And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that 60 votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town, then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it's not leadership.
The sermon about "change we can believe in" I could do without. Then again, I'm immune, so don't listen to me. As I said earlier, these speeches are always considered clinkers by the gasbags and the people usually love them. So I would think that this will be well received.
And the Republicans looked like asses, as usual.
Update: David Brooks just said:
If you took out health care and the fights we've had the last year and just read the rest of the speech, you wouldn't think it was a particularly liberal speech.There were a lot of tax cuts in there. There's a spending freeze, there's pay as you go, there nuclear power, there's free trade pacts. I was struck by how moderate the speech was. If you took away all the fighting in the last year, and started with this, I think the atmosphere in Washington would probably be different.
Yeah, sure it would.
Update II: The Bizaarroworld State of the Union speech and the Bizarroworld congress and the Bizarroworld president are creepy. I'm glad I don't live there.
Update III:
Sometimes, it just works its way to the surface and they can't keep it in: