The emails keep pouring in, so allow me to say that I didn't trash the speech because of some dust-up today with a White House briefer. Give me a little more credit than that after all these years. I didn't trash it for attention – I don't withdraw a word of my Newsweek piece. I wrote my genuine reaction to the actual thing in real time. That's what I always do and owe you. But I think this reader helped me understand my own sense of disappointment:
Here's my take (which may explain part of the reason why so many of your readers are dissenting from yours?): Those of us who make up the conservative wing of Obama's base wanted him to throw us some red meat. Instead we got lots of tofu. It's not nothing. But if he wants us to go balls out for him again in 2012, we'll need something a bit more substantive.
This helps too:
You are correct, this was a highly gimmicky, populist speech, but this is an election year. If Obama had been bold and adopted a Simpson-Bowles agenda, his coattails would have been non-existent. But, by delivering these talking points to Democratic candidates challenging for Congressional and the Senate seats, Obama is laying the groundwork for getting a legislature he can work with. Imagine the Republican incumbents having to tell voters why they don't approve of Obama's populist proposals of tax credits and tax cuts for people hiring and paying Americans like their constituents. This was about getting a governing majority.
I guess I always believed that Obama would govern from the center. The GOP prevented that. But seeing the tax code littered with a thousand more populist meddles is not what this Obamacon hoped for. And if he gets a governing majority, we would get more of that? That's my fear.
The Dish 