Encouraging Words

I want to thank friends for their encouragement in the past week helping to organize support for another friend, but I'm focusing tonight on something else.

From the President's State of the Union speech tonight:

"We face big and difficult challenges. And what the American people hope - what they deserve - is for all of us, Democrats and Republicans, to work through our differences; to overcome the numbing weight of our politics. For while the people who sent us here have different backgrounds and different stories and different beliefs, the anxieties they face are the same. The aspirations they hold are shared. A job that pays the bill. A chance to get ahead. Most of all, the ability to give their children a better life.

You know what else they share? They share a stubborn resilience in the face of adversity. After one of the most difficult years in our history, they remain busy building cars and teaching kids; starting businesses and going back to school. They are coaching little league and helping their neighbors. As one woman wrote to me, "We are strained but hopeful, struggling but encouraged."

It is because of this spirit - this great decency and great strength - that I have never been more hopeful about America's future than I am tonight. Despite our hardships, our union is strong. We do not give up. We do not quit. We don't allow fear or division to break our spirit. In this new decade, it's time the American people get a government that matches their decency; that embodies their strength."

As some political observers might say, who could argue with that?  I like the direct appeal to decency.  It's a plain folks appeal with some meat to it -- an argument that government that is supposed to be "of the people" should reflect the common values of average everyday American people.  And President Obama knows how to shape an argument so that the decent thing to do seems obvious at first.  But the problem is that the people don't know what they want right now -- they want to have a government that works, I think, but some are all too happy to let the government flounder in order to advance their own, angry agenda.  I also think the chattering class, (which I am probably a member of), are likely to tear down any positive agenda with their own spins and opinions and angles.  Let's hope, though, that the President is right, and that the American people can have a decent government for a change.  I liked the speech overall, and thought the President has the opportunity now to re-set the agenda, reset the terms of the debate, and push hard for health care reform and other key objectives.