Obama Better Give One Hell of a Speech

As job growth literately grinds to a halt, the crisis becomes all the more evident. And Owens states the obvious yet critical point: "This distressing news sets the stage for President Obama’s address to Congress next week on jobs and the economy."

President Obama is starting to recognize this reality.

He's going to give that "major" address to Congress on Thursday.

And he's going to talk about some kind of jobs program.

But Obama has yet to display the sense of urgency that is required.

He wasted the summer on a ridiculous debt-ceiling debate that—with the establishment of the congressional "super committee" on debt and deficit reduction—"ended" with a commitment to continue the wrangling.

Now, even as he has focused on the jobs crisis, Obama continues to send weak signals.

The worst of those weak signals took the form of the wrestling this week over when to schedule his speech before the Congress.

With American teetering on the brink of potentially severe recession, a president who is in charge does not worry about scheduling conflicts with a partisan debate involving his potential opponents—as Obama did—or a football game. He says that some issues are more important than politics or football.

Obama did not do that. It was a mistake.

There is much talk about how the president has to "go big" with his jobs speech. There's no question that this is true. But there are many ways to "go big." For Obama to succeed next week—and he must succeed if he hopes to right the course not just of his presidency but of the economy—he must hit all the bases.

disgustedwithgovt wrote:Excellently done by John. These numbers are getting so scary, I'm in the midlife crowd wondering if I'll ever work again, and there are so many of us. Sometimes it's just like a feeling of death, death of a life you use to have, we are learning how to continue to live, just like when you lose a loved one, learning to go on.

mistermunster wrote:BASED on what has transpired in 3 years so far. This SPEECH will be MORE of same rhetoric, Shovel ready, Green this..GREEN that... infrastructure NEEDS, Unemployed suffering...Jobs, jobs, jobs, blah, blah, blah. As long as the GOP holds the House and WILL budge ON NOTHING, Cantor running around with his CUT, CUT, CUT BS and that psycho Perry on ROAD to be President....I see NOTHING but more pain for us all. Obama MUST do ONE thing and the ONE thing ONLY and thats CALL the GOP out on the carpet for the monsters they are and the DAMAGE they have caused the last 3 years. The DRAGON must be truthfully identified and slayed and the Dems NEEDS to stand up and FIGHT. If they don't it's OVER.