Hello
In 24 hours, we will have a real party. Until then, one final short dose of inspiration.
ETA: One more vid, right at the top of the page. WATCH IT! :)
*
*
"I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong."
Abraham Lincoln
*
*
*
Here you go, off the cuff, a speech for the ages.
*
*
************************************************************************
*
*
Believe it or not, some mainstream media Obama love:
*
*
*
Gail Collins
...If it passes, the short-term political consequences are unknowable. But in 10 years, people will look back in amazement that we once lived in a time when Americans couldn’t get health care coverage if they were sick, when insurance companies could cut off your benefits for being sick, and when run-of-the-mill serious illnesses routinely destroyed families’ financial security.,
And if it passes, Barack Obama will have validated his presidency.
He came into office on the wave of hope so enormous there was no way he was not going to disappoint. He broke promises...
But the core qualities that got him elected were his coolness under pressure and the sense that he would never stop fighting for change. No matter what you think of it, this health care bill is one heck of a change. And no matter what you think of the White House strategy, Obama has been incredibly tenacious in pushing for it.
He stuck to his guns. Speech after speech, phone call after phone call, sit-down with one frightened or greedy or confused legislator after another, he kept on the case. "Do not quit. Do not give up," he told yet another rally on Friday. "We are going to get this done."
Ronald Brownstein
Win or lose, Obama has pursued health care reform as tenaciously as any president has pursued any domestic initiative in decades. Health care has now been his presidency's central domestic focus for a full year. That's about as long as it took to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, originally introduced by John F. Kennedy and driven home by Lyndon Johnson. Rarely since World War II has a president devoted so much time, at so much political cost, to shouldering a single priority through Congress. It's reasonable to debate whether Obama should have invested so heavily in health care. But it's difficult to quibble with Emanuel's assessment that once the president placed that bet, "He has shown fortitude, stamina, and strength."
Charles Blow
At the conclusion of his Wednesday appearance on Fox News, insolent interviewer Bret Baier interrupted the president for the umpteenth time to ask him if he thought that the health care bill would pass. Obama responded with a familiar line: "I do. I’m confident it will pass. And the reason I’m confident that it’s going to pass is because it’s the right thing to do."
This idea that he wants reform "because it’s the right thing to do" resonates with people. Whether they agree with him or not, they seem to genuinely believe that he has good intentions and that he is, at his base, a good man. This view of him has so penetrated the public that it often goes unspoken.
...Regardless of whether the health care bill survives, Obama has demonstrated that he can. And if the reform bill passes, and his numbers rebound, I’m going to take to calling him Barack the Unbreakable.
************************************************************************
*************************************************************************