That was a masterful performance. It has been eight years since we had a President who could utter a coherent sentence. Too long. When is the last time we had a President who could go from describing t the desperate situation of the economy, compare it to Japan's crisis of the last decade, and then without losing a beat, comment on Nuclear weapons in the Middle East and switch to Alex Rodriguez? Eight years.
He even called on that guy Major Garrulous from FOX. Of course Major G. tried to make a big thing of some dumb remark of VP Biden and Obama had to laugh it off. The President did not fall into the trap set by Helen Thomas when asked if he knew of any country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons. He smoothly said that he is trying to enter into a nuclear weapons reductions agreement with Russia so we will have the standing to tell other countries not to pursue them. When is the last time we had a President who gave a shit about our standing in the world? Eight years.
Obama did not attack the Republicans because he did not have to. With a brutal majority in the House and within striking distance of a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, he can flick them off casually with a reminder that " I inherited this trillion dollar deficit". He did not need to actually say that the last President inherited a projected surplus of a trillion dollars.
Every time we have been in serious trouble in the past we have found a leader who would rise to the occasion and pull us out. In this winter of our discontent, the one relief we have is that we have done it again. While they crow about how much they want him to fail, Obama can point to his trip to visit both the Republican caucuses, and adding their tax cut proposals to the stimulus bill even before the negotiations began. If the end result is no votes from them in the House, and just three to get past a filibuster, so what? His plan is to either get them to co-operate or to make them look like stubborn fools. After setting our house on fire, they are blocking the fire brigade.
Obama can pursue this strategy only because he doesn't really need them: if moderate Republicans won't help him avoid a filibuster, it would destroy their caucus even more thoroughly than the Government shutdown destroyed the Gingrich revolution.
This may be the best Press Conference Obama will ever have: we should expect the honeymoon to end soon. But if he can maintain even a fraction this intellectual level through the end of his term, he will do better than all of his recent predecessors. Including Reagan. In many ways the problems Obama is fixing have their roots in the policies of Ronald Reagan. The frenzy of deregulation started then. So did the habit of borrowing instead of paying for Government spending through taxation. Even Bill Clinton could only reverse the trend temporarily. To undo what Reagan wrought, we needed someone who had the same communication skills combined with a much greater intellect. Obama showed today that he is up to the challenge.
Of course, we knew that. That is why we elected him.