From TPM Reader RT …
I don’t think it’s fair to say that POTUS “got off to a rocky start” because his audience was not initially receptive. I would argue that he is the one who warmed them (especially Dems) to his speech, and he did it by an engaged rhetoric that has been absent since the last election. He was engaged and his rhetoric was sharply focused, using repetition to drive home his themes. He laid responsibility for failure at the feet of congress, emphasized that what he was proposing was nothing radical, and called the GOP on its alternative world view of the ethos of the country. It was a very different speech for him.
From TPM Reader SS …
Too often, Obama seems to play only one side of himself, either the fiery idealist or the nuts and bolts pragmatist. The result pleases no one. Tonight he brought together the idealism with the pragmatism, and no small amount of fighting words. My hopes are still low that the Republicans will meet him half way, or any way but their highway (unpaved, mind you). But Obama has put them on alert that he’s going to press them for action.
More updated on the speech at TPMLivewire.
