Foreign affairs portion.
9:57 Speaking of al-Qaeda terrorism, "We will not allow it." Easier said than done.
9:58 Obama calls for more troops in the military! Am feeling desire to invent time travel so I can go back in the polling booth to vote for Ron Paul.
Nothing else new on foreign policy.
10:03 Starts praising ordinary Americans, goes through ritual of naming a few. I'm guessing this is like the announcements in shul- a sign that we're ending soon. Maybe I should drink a little wine to make it feel like kiddush!
So what do we get out of this substantively? O. calling for more bailouts (no news there), moving to center with tax cuts, some cuts in spending. Speech could have easily been given by President Clinton (Bill or Hillary) - solidifies my impression that O. is basically a generic Democrat, not the Messiah that liberals hope for, not the Great Satan that his opponents fear.
I also think that whether he succeeds or not, leftists will come to loathe him as much as movement conservatives do now- maybe more, because they will feel betrayed.
NBC is talking about O's optimism- well gosh, what do you expect? After Jimmy Carter, it is conventional wisdom that a President must be optimistic.
