By Roger Simon
Mar 2, 2009
It was a night of reckoning. It was a night to face up to the mistakes of the past, the calamity of the present and the hopes of the future. It was a night when Barack Obama showed why he had been elected president. "As we stand at this crossroads of history, the eyes of all people in all nations are once again upon us," he said in his address to Congress Tuesday night, "watching to see what we do with this moment, waiting for us to lead."
It was, he said, "a tremendous burden, but also a great privilege -- one that has been entrusted to few generations of Americans." It was not a night of sugar plum fairies dangled before us or sweet nothings whispered into our ears. We have had plenty of those over the years.
President Obama used the word "crisis" repeatedly, because what, after all, could you call the current state of our economy? He spoke of Americans facing "sleepless nights," with their dreams "hanging by a thread." He spoke of "a trillion-dollar deficit, a financial crisis and a costly recession."
And he also spoke of who was to blame: us.Us and the people we have, term after term, elected to represent us. "And though all these challenges went unsolved, we still managed to spend more money and pile up more debt, both as individuals and through our government, than ever before," he said.
The "critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day," he said. "Well, that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here."
At moments, his speech had almost Churchillian rhythms to it. At a time of great peril to his nation, June 4, 1940, Winston Churchill said: "We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. ... We shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender."
It was a night of reckoning. It was a night to face up to the mistakes of the past, the calamity of the present and the hopes of the future. It was a night when Barack Obama showed why he had been elected president. "As we stand at this crossroads of history, the eyes of all people in all nations are once again upon us," he said in his address to Congress Tuesday night, "watching to see what we do with this moment, waiting for us to lead."It was, he said, "a tremendous burden, but also a great privilege -- one that has been entrusted to few generations of Americans." It was not a night of sugar plum fairies dangled before us or sweet nothings whispered into our ears. We have had plenty of those over the years.
President Obama used the word "crisis" repeatedly, because what, after all, could you call the current state of our economy? He spoke of Americans facing "sleepless nights," with their dreams "hanging by a thread." He spoke of "a trillion-dollar deficit, a financial crisis and a costly recession."
And he also spoke of who was to blame: us.Us and the people we have, term after term, elected to represent us. "And though all these challenges went unsolved, we still managed to spend more money and pile up more debt, both as individuals and through our government, than ever before," he said.
The "critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day," he said. "Well, that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here."
At moments, his speech had almost Churchillian rhythms to it. At a time of great peril to his nation, June 4, 1940, Winston Churchill said: "We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. ... We shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender."
