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The Speech: “Yes We Will”
In Barack Obama style, optimism is not cheerleading but understanding the situation, finding the best answers and getting to work on them without delay. Tonight, we saw that approach, expressed with more assertion than we have seen before from the President in charge of saving the American economy.
“While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken, though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this,” he said in his address to Congress. “We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”
If there is a word that means the opposite of “demagogue,” Obama defined it tonight by devoting his speech to detailing the difficulties without minimizing them while stressing the steps needed to save jobs, save homes and get the banking system working again.
He told us “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. A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn’t afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day.”
In his even-handed way, the President emphasized his desire “not to lay blame or look backwards,” but added that “it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we’ll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament.”
He acknowledged widespread resentment over the bank bailouts but made it clear that “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” and promised “I will not spend a single penny for the purpose of rewarding a single Wall Street executive, but I will do whatever it takes to help the small business that can’t pay its workers or the family that has saved and still can’t get a mortgage.”
5 Responses to “The Speech: “Yes We Will””
“In his even-handed way, the President emphasized his desire “not to lay blame or look backwards,” but added that “it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we’ll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament.”'
I agree… and I can just imagine some people screaming “Obama's blaming Republicans! He's being partisan!”
To those people who want to point to this as evidence of Obama's partisanship I want to offer this analogy.
Obama is like a doctor asking his patient why he was not compliant in taking his prescriptions… Not to place blame on the patient, but to understand why the patient did not take his medications regularly and offer suggestions and solutions so the patient could take their medications regularly and become healthy.
If the patient is not honest about his medications, or his symptoms and if the doctor can not understand what is going on with the patient to offer the right advice, then the patient probably will not get better.
At this point, the polling and the consensus commentary is that Obama has at least tried to be bipartisan. As for the Republicans, the questions is whether or not they should rediscover lost principles or just adapt to the new age. Jindal did not exactly inspire tonight as the man ready to move the GOP in any direction at all – new or old.
It's a brilliant tactic for Obama. Allow Pelosi to push an agenda solidly to the left, “listen” to Republicans outraged over the measure, offer some bones to the Republican, and sign a decidedly progressive law. Obama comes out looking stronger.
I suspect next time Obama will not leave all the law writing to Pelosi, if only to avoid any embarrassments. But I can just see how the budget is going to go. Pelosi will include a bunch of earmarks. Obama will demand “I will not sign this with those earmarks.” The Republicans will try to play Obama against Pelosi. Pelosi will remove the earmarks and a very liberal budget will pass with no Republican votes again.
A terrific appeal to a favorably inclined American public, directly from the bully pulpit. My question is, why would the Republican Party follow it by sacrificing one of their fastest rising stars, Bobby Jindal, to deliver the same tired and discredited talking points we've all heard over and over again for the last 30 years?
Palin/Jindal '12!
My impression is that like most of these speeches it probably didn't change anyone's mind significantly. The people who like Obama seem to have liked his speech and those who don't did not.
I listened to it on CNN Radio and I think that probably left a different impression than if I'd seen it on TV. I didn't see the audience reactions which people seem to put a lot of importance on.
He didn't say much that was new. It really sounded more like a pep talk than anything else. The numerous pauses for applause became tiresome as they always do regardless of president. On the radio I don't know that it was delivered all that well but Obama's a child of the TV era so the visual image was probably important and I couldn't evaluate that..
What has been so lacking in the last 8 years is Trust and Hope. This President is different. He is not as stupid as the last one and clearly one gets the impression he is at least honest and will try to make things better for more people than the favoured and all powerful rich oil Texan warlords that have ruled America (and the world) in the past. I have no doubt there are some 'handouts' in this bailout package and many things may not work; but at least there is Hope as opposed to doom and gloom and Trust instead of cynicism … at least among those who are smart enough to 'get it'.