HOW DO YOU KNOW HE'S MOVING TO THE CENTER?:

A Grownup Speech to Please Folks at Home, Not Pundits (Howard Kurtz, 1/26/11, Newsweek)

The pundits weren’t crazy about the president’s speech: Too flat, they said, not enough applause lines, didn’t live up to the inspiration of Tucson. [...]

What was most striking—and reinforced by the mixed seating in the House chamber—was a bipartisan air that went beyond the occasional nod to John Boehner. Even when the president deftly defended his health care law—spotlighting a brain cancer patient, James Howard, sitting in the audience—he offered a GOP olive branch of reducing paperwork. “Let’s fix what needs fixing and move forward,” he said.

In fact, there were whole chunks of the speech that could have been recited by Republican presidents. Obama came out for medical malpractice reform, a GOP hobbyhorse roughly forever (although the devil is in the details). He called for a five-year freeze on domestic spending (not as deep as Republican cuts, but still). He talked about streamlining bureaucracy (“a government that lives within its means”) and modifying regulations “that put an unnecessary burden on businesses.” In fact, he offered little red meat for the left. The MSNBC panel, minus Keith Olbermann, was strikingly subdued.

...because he sounds like W.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 26, 2011 6:47 AM