Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Obama speech - quick react

What a fascinating speech. Policy-wise, it was all compromise. An insurance exchange market, an individual mandate, no public option, etc. But on the politics, he was totally bitch-slapping the Republicans. I think that's the reverse of how politics usually works, where you praise your opponents while knifing them on policy. I'm curious how this one will pan out.

The Teddy Kennedy stuff toward the end was just beautiful.

Oh, and that was Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) heckling Obama and calling him a liar. Man, did Pelosi look pissed.

3 comments:

Jonathan Bernstein said...

Seth,

I think a lot of the partisan digs were really carefully hidden...there certainly were a lot, but I'm not sure it played that way to ordinary citizens. I suspect they heard a lot of "John McCain is wonderful" and "my door is always open."

Anonymous said...

What do you mean, no public option? He kept the public option open, though claiming that only about 5% of Americans were likely to use it. Did I miss something?

-NW

Seth Masket said...

NW, my interpretation was that he was defending the public option but signaling that he'd accept a bill without it. He seemed pretty vague on that one.