I think I actually in my blog post last night gave the dems more credit than they deserved for having a plan that they were about to hatch. Because Obama tonight just mealy-mouthed the public option once again. He didn't propose "trigger," nor did he propose public "co-ops". Nor did he say public option or else. He basically said he still likes the public option, but it's just "a means to an end" -- whatever that means. This smacks of a guy who called this Joint Session of Congress too early -- because he can't turn around and call another one in a few weeks, and he and his dems apparently don't have a bill yet that they think they can pass. One thing I've always given Obama a ton of credit for -- his political skill. But I don't see it on exhibition tonight. I see a guy who (just speaking from a purely politics perspective, divorced of my own viewpoints) should have held this Joint Session card awhile longer.
As for the speech, I only caught the second half live, but have listened to plenty of pundits tonight on both sides talk about the entirety of it. I thought the biting rhetoric towards repubs in several instances was a politcal mistake, since it's the middle that has largely driven so much of this opposition to the dems' plan, and that middle (and I'm being purely honest here -- I don't like the trend at all) is drifting towards the GOP these days. (I would prefer that so many of them remain Independent, because I trust the repubs no more than I do the dems, but I digress.) And I think in that atmosphere that is currently at play in the country, the anti-GOP rhetoric was fairly short-sighted on Obama's part.
As for the tort reform stuff -- puh-lease! You're not going to make it a part of the plan/bill you support, but rather you are going to "focus" on it in a few places in the country. Talk about empty lip service. Folks, disregard that silliness real fast.
So let's see, anything else here (I told you these were random thoughts!) -- yeah, actually: Like I said, I only heard the second half of the speech verbatim. I wasn't impressed. Obama obviously was reading from a teleprompter, but it largely SOUNDED LIKE HE WAS READING from a teleprompter. Perhaps the second half of the speech was the part he hadn't rehearsed as much, I have no idea. He did dial it up several notches towards the very end, but prior to that it sounded pretty routine, and he wasn't flowing that well -- sounded like he was reading. OK, I've rambled long enough. Just some random thoughts, as I said.
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