Posts Tagged ‘reactions’

Check out this Wordle graphic of President Obama’s “not the state of the union” speech to Congress last night.

American, economy, health, every, people, plan, new, energy, education, Americans, America, recovery, also. These were the top words used. We didn’t hear as many specifics as we might have yearned for–or as the markets this morning indicate they were looking for–but the memes were as comforting as a warm bath after a 10 mile hike in the snow.

Obama’a speech was rhetorically excellent, his energetic delivery infectious, his vision sufficiently elevating to loosen up a worried and somewhat paralyzed nation and persuade us to consider new solutions.

“It’s not about helping banks but about helping people” was a great applause line, striking exactly the right note even though we know in our hearts that we are helping banks too. I perked up when he said, “The cost of health care keeps going up. Yet we keep delaying reform.” Has he taken on Clinton’s position that we need a universal health care plan? I dared to hope so, for incremental change won’t work and Obama has in the past tended toward the incremental fixes on this important issue.